


The Revenge of Bilis Manger

by secooper87



Series: The Child of Balime [11]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Missing Scene, Mystery, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secooper87/pseuds/secooper87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with time travel is sometimes... you get the effects before you've created the causes. It's February, 2008. Something is moving in the darkness.  Locked in the rift, awaiting a trans-dimensional Key to open it. Or... has this already happened? </p><p>Meanwhile, in California, Saxon's released Ethan Rayne.  And he really has it in for Buffy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It all started because someone told Seo she shouldn't go into the building.

So she _had_ to.

Easy lock to pick. And when she got inside — not much there. Not on the surface. Just an abandoned dance hall, 40's memorabilia scattered throughout. She glanced around, a smile lighting up her face, then raced up the stairs.

If Alison had been here, she'd have said to pack it in and get going. Just an old, useless, graffiti covered building. But Seo stood in the middle of the dance floor, beneath the dusty chandelier. Feeling the age of this place.

She closed her eyes. Trying to imagine… what it would be like. To enter this place when it was _alive_. When it was full of people and laughter and happiness.

"To be able to step back through the past," Seo breathed. Taking a step forwards. "To somewhere else. Somewhen else."

Somewhen else.

It was a throb inside her hearts. To move. To run and never look back. Jump and never stop to think. To smell the air of a time not her own, to see the sky, feel the grass and foliage of another era…

"But you can," came the voice from behind her.

Seo jumped, her eyes snapping open. She spun on her feet and found herself facing a tall, slender man with white, sleeked-back hair, wearing a black suit and a cravat.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you come…" Seo began.

"Of course you didn't," said the man. "There was nothing to hear. I simply appeared here. I can step through history's pages. And so can you."

Seo looked more closely at him. She could feel that brilliant something in the back of her mind, blossoming with curiosity and intrigue and a thousand questions. Who was he? What was he? How could he travel through time? Why did he trigger some… odd feeling, inside of her, like there was something about him her senses couldn't quite place?

But that wasn't what she said.

"I can travel through time?" she asked. Trying, desperately, to keep the raw need out of her voice.

"Can't you feel it?" asked the man. "The rift calls your name, longs for its mistress. Longs for a Lady of Time to guide its hand."

A smile crept up Seo's face, as her brain went light-speed, trying to work him out. "Who are you?"

The man walked towards her. His eyes boring into her own. "Bilis Manger," he said, handing her a business card. "A temporal being, like yourself. Except… I am not a master of time. Time is a master of me."

Seo's eyes lit up. "You're like Billy Pilgrim!" she cried, taking the card and shoving it in a pocket. "You've come unstuck in time!" Her mind whirled with possibilities, with longing and fantasy and reality all mixed together. She glanced around herself, with a longing sorrow. "You can go back. Actually go back. Be in the past."

"And so can you," said Bilis. He reached out to take her hands. "If you let yourself."

The smile dripped off her face. She snatched her hands away, a glumness settling over her. "I can't," she said. "Jack said—"

"But he's already there," said Bilis. "Waiting. Can't you feel him? Captain Jack Harkness, in the sands of time."

Seo stood still. Feeling… the brush of… something. She closed her eyes.

"That's it," said Bilis. "Imagine. Feel what it would be like to be in that moment of time. Walk through the mists of temporal flux and probabilities. Let it become real to you."

Yes. Yes! She could feel it. Could bring it closer to her, bit by bit, latching onto that one name — Captain Jack Harkness — sticking out through the mists of history. The room began to warm, around her, as she willed it warm. The distant sounds of laughter, as she willed those people to come back.

And it was beautiful. So beautiful to feel the pull of the vortex humming around her. So amazing to hear that comfortable, almost familiar song of the entire universe floating through her psyche.

The gust of time winds rushing through her hair.

"Just like that," Bilis soothed. "Step into it, Seo. Can you feel the interplay of forces around you? Can you feel the power of the rift, just at your fingertips?"

Seo could. Oh, yes, she could! Could feel the rift almost calling to her — like an old friend. It was so tangible, suddenly, here. So… present.

Seo reached out. Stroked a hand along its surface, feeling the different dimensional walls and forces and pressures swirling around her. Then, took a step forward. Not a big step, just… a small step. And felt herself almost tingle, as her every fantasy of traveling through time began to play through.

Music echoed across the dance hall.

She stopped. Her hand lingering on the barrier of the rift, separating her own time from the time she was stepping into. She could break it apart so easily. One push…

But there's something magical about the moment just before opening a locked door. The moment when possibility was infinite, and anything could lie just out of sight. Seo stayed. Lingered on it. That moment of hope. Of beauty.

It was almost enough. Just to _know_ she could do this, without having to actually take the last step. Almost enough to just walk away from it all, with just memories and mystery and…

The music got louder.

"Just a little more," Bilis urged her. "Don't be afraid of barriers — they will open for you. Any door will open for you, Seo. You are the master key that can open any lock. Pure potential. Pure power."

Seo stepped back, eyes opening, all apparitions of the 1940's fading around her, as she snapped her head over to Bilis. Eyes narrowed.

" _What_ did you call me?" she demanded.

Bilis smiled, clasping his hands behind his back. "The Key, Seo. I called you the Key. Because that's what you are."

Seo turned on him, completely withdrawing from her near-walk through time. "You… but that's impossible. You know my name. You know I'm…" She stopped, her hands clenching into fists. As a sudden frisson of fear spread through her. "You're trying to get me to unlock something."

Bilis didn't answer, just kept smiling.

"You're an unstable point in space-time," Seo continued. "I can _feel_ that on you. _See_ it. You haven't just come unstuck in time — you're trapped in the rift, and need me to unlock you." She gave a sly smile. "But I'm not thick enough to fall for that. If you've been imprisoned in the rift, it's for a reason."

"To save you," said Bilis.

The smile fell, just a hair. "To… save…?"

Bilis shook his head, pacing slowly around Seo, in a circle. "Oh, Seo, Seo, Seo," he said. "You really don't have any idea who I am."

The smile dissolved entirely.

"Here I am," said Bilis, "so aged and withered and changed that even the older you would hardly recognize me. And you… look just the same. Two hundred years, in the outside world — thousands and thousands of years, for me — and you still haven't aged a day."

Seo's jaw fell open. "You're… from my future."

From a future version of herself that traveled through time.

"But… why are you like this?" said Seo. "How…?"

"Do you know how long I've waited for you?" Bilis demanded. "You said you'd come back for me. You said you'd release me. But you left, and you never came back. You never, ever came back."

Seo tried to step back, but Bilis stepped forward, advancing on her. "I… haven't done that, yet," she insisted. "Whoever you are, whatever happened to make you—"

"Two hundred years ago, _you_ , Seo, were the one trapped in here," said Bilis, his black eyes leveled at her. "Enslaved to the rift. Enslaved to time. But _I_ took your place. Because I cared about you — I trusted you! I _loved_ you! And I thought you loved me, too. The things I did for you… the things I was willing to give up…!"

Seo felt her hearts sink. Felt every single bit of her conscience ache, as she realized… what she must have done to him. Why? Why would she do something like that?

Why would she trap someone in a rift that made them practically immortal, in their own private hell and unable to die or free themselves from it, and then just… run away from them?! Just because they were temporally unstable? She wouldn't do things like that!

…would she?

"You never came back for me," said Bilis. He stopped in his tracks. "So I found you, instead." His posture was calm, relaxed, serene, but his eyes were bitter, angry. "You made me into me. So I'll make you into you."

"But why…?" Seo began.

But before she could finish, Bilis Manger had marched up to her, grabbed her shoulders in his hands, the fingers boring down through her with an iron grip. "They are going to die," he said, his voice low, yet calm, even. "Your friends. Your family. Everyone you care about. Everyone you know. They will all die, Seo, and you will watch them. Unable to stop it. Because — here, now — you'll remember that you didn't."

An icy chill ran down Seo's spine. Who was this man that she would wrong, at some point in her own future? Who was this man she'd run away from, that would come back so changed?

For a few moments, Seo said nothing. Could say nothing. As she felt the thin edges of time that still lingered in this place. As she looked into the eyes of someone who had once trusted her so deeply, he'd do anything she asked. And was now willing to kill everyone and everything around her, just to make her suffer for it.

Her friends… her family…

Seo thrust herself out of his grasp, and shot him a hard stare. "No."

Bilis gave a grim smile. "No?"

"No!" Seo repeated, turning and heading towards the door. "Because I'm going to stop you." Her hand on the banister, trying not to clutch it too tightly as Bilis' laughter trailed down behind her.

"Just remember!" he shouted, as she left the building. "Everything that happens, everything you fail to stop — _you_ did it, Seo! _You_ killed them all!"

* * *

"Well, I'll give you one thing," said Jack, leaning back in his office chair behind his desk. "It's not what I was expecting you to ask."

Buffy just turned in her seat, across the desk from Jack, so she was facing Seo. "No."

"But… you don't understand!" Seo insisted. She kept darting her eyes over at the rift manipulator, bouncing on her toes, trying to resist the urge to go over there and just do it, anyways. "I _have_ to. It's really, _really_ important."

"Why?" Buffy demanded.

Seo hesitated. Her eyes drifting back to the manipulator.

What could she tell them? What did she really know? That she'd screwed something up, in her own future, except maybe she didn't, and she needed to figure out some way to work out what was right and what was wrong, and why and how Bilis was actually stuck in the rift in the first place, so she could figure out whether or not she should unstick him, and…

"I don't know," Seo admitted.

Mom shook her head. "You're just trying to open the rift because we told you not to, huh?" she asked.

Now that she mentioned it… that actually seemed like a much better reason than the one Seo had come up with.

"I'm not… opening the rift," Seo insisted. "Not exactly. I just want to—"

"Completely dissect the rift manipulator and build an entirely different one in its place," Mom said. She crossed her arms. "One that would specifically complement _your_ energies. That would put _you_ in charge of deciding when the rift opened and when it closed. And how."

"It'd be better!" Seo insisted. "The one you have, right now, is… clunky. Awkward. I can fix that! I can make sure the manipulator weeds out the bulk of the temporal instabilities. Just give me a little time to experiment, and I know I can work it out!"

"No," said Mom.

Seo looked over at Jack.

"I'm gonna have to go with Buffy on this one," he told her. "Sorry, kid."

"But… but… why?!" Seo asked.

"Because the only reason I can imagine for you wanting to build that kind of thing is because you want to open the rift without our noticing," said Mom.

"It's too risky," Jack told Seo. "You could unbalance the forces inside the rift. Destroy the world. Maybe even open the rift, by accident, while you're changing around the equipment. I'm sorry, Seo. But I just can't take that risk."

"But what if someone… somewhere… did something really, really wrong," said Seo, "by accident, and I need to use the rift manipulator to figure out what happened, and know if I should be fixing it?"

Jack and Buffy looked at one another. Then back at Seo. It was clear that they both had worked out that the 'someone' in question was Seo herself.

"It's not me!" Seo said. Okay, so… maybe it was her… but a her that hadn't happened, yet. Which meant that other her was just as mysterious and confusing as a complete stranger. "That's why I need to work out the motivations."

"And this… 'accident'… entails what, exactly?" Jack asked.

"I don't know," Seo admitted. "That's why I need the rift manipulator to work it out."

Once again, Buffy and Jack exchanged a look. And Seo knew… she was rapidly losing her argument.

"Look, what if… some Time… Person… Type-Thingy out there," Seo began, "had this… friend. That they were really close to. And then this… Time Person… accidentally screwed up something, turning that friend into some immortal time traveler. And then, I don't know, maybe just because they sort of freaked or got distracted or just… felt that kind of messed uppedness of time around their friend… that Time Person ran away and never came back, and now the friend's all angry, but I think he's actually just confused, and if I could just—"

"Seo," Jack cut in, his face very dark. "Stop. Now."

Seo stopped talking.

Buffy looked over at Jack, biting her lower lip, a cringe planted on her face. Seo felt a wave of panic spreading over her. Did Buffy — Mom — and Jack already know about Bilis? Was this future screw-up of hers already public knowledge?

"I just think if I don't try to use the rift to fix things," Seo tried, "then maybe he'll—"

Jack got up from his desk. Marched over to Seo, all hints of lightness gone from his face.

"Don't," he said, in a very low voice, "and I mean _don't_ — touch the rift manipulator. Don't get close to it. Don't get within five hundred feet of it. Because I'm not letting _anyone_ use me as an excuse to end the world."

Then he passed by her, and left.

Seo stared after him, unsure what to even say to this.

"I think we should go home," said Mom, getting up and leading Seo out the door to Jack's office.

"But… but there's someone out there," Seo insisted, "who used to be a friend, but got left behind, and I don't know why, and if I don't find out, everyone could—"

"Home," Buffy said, more firmly, yanking Seo along with her. "Definitely home. Right now."

* * *

Deep down inside the Cardiff Rift, energies tingled. Shook. She had so nearly passed through, come so very near to the rift — the Key, the manipulator of energies. The rift responded. Its energies heightened. Calling for its Key.

But the Key had not unlocked it. Not done what the rift had expected. Just shaken up the temporal landscape, and then left. The rift still closed and sealed.

And so the pressures built up inside. More and more, higher and higher, internal locks and barriers and probabilities shattering under the interdimensional buildup. So much time distortion! So many trans-dimensional pressures! And nowhere to filter them, nowhere for them to go, nowhere but…

Down.

Down, right to the bottom. To locks that should never be unlocked. Prisons with chains that were never supposed to be open. They bucked. Pinprick holes emerging. Even Bilis' reigns growing looser, more anomalous. Chips and dents and scrapes appeared across every lock and pocket and multi-temporal, multi-dimensional barrier inside the rift.

But the locks did not give.

As the seal across the outside began to crack, once more. Peel away, revealing one intense patch of anomalous space-time. Right around…

The Ritz.

And the name "Captain Jack Harkness."

* * *

"I'm free to go?" Ethan Rayne asked. "Just like that?" He eyed the woman in the business suit, carefully, trying to figure out why she was releasing him from prison.

"My employer arranged it," said the woman. She checked her mobile, then collapsed it, and turned back to Ethan. "Don't worry. We'll have all the technicalities dealt with on our end." She gave a small smile. "Just… one matter we need to discuss. Before you're released. The matter of… Rupert Giles."

Ethan Rayne tensed at the name. "Never heard of him," he lied.

"He's ours," said the woman. "Working for us. If you kill him, believe me, _you'll_ be the one who's sorry, at the end of it. Not us."

"So… you got Ripper, thought you might as well release me and collect yourselves the full set?" Ethan guessed.

The woman gave him a small smile. Checked around for anyone else nearby, that could spy on them. Then, leaned in closer, and whispered, "The most satisfying revenge can be causing emotional pain. Not tearing _him_ down. Tearing down someone close to him."

Ethan Rayne thought it over. Then gave the woman a little smile, as he realized where she was going.

Yes.

Don't target Ripper. Not directly. Target the Slayer. The one Ripper loved like a daughter. Get rid of her, and Ripper would completely flip his lid.

Then go after him.

Ethan went through his magic book collection, later that day. Tore through books and spells and charms and everything he had access to. And… oh. "The Vision of Chaos", by B. Manger. Written in Cardiff, fifty years ago.

The book caught his eye.

He flipped through the pages, before he stumbled across… the perfect spell. The perfect scheme. The perfect strategy. The perfect revenge.

"Thank you, B. Manger," said Ethan, as he began to prepare.


	2. Chapter 2

"You look worried," said Alison, sitting down on a park bench, crossing her legs. "Obsessing over the 'someone's out to kill your mum' thing, again?"

Seo was leaning over, elbows on her knees, eyes on the ground. She shook her head. Then… hesitated.

"Unless… it's all related," Seo whispered.

"What's all related?" asked Alison.

Seo shot up, turning to face Alison. "What if… Bilis is behind all of it?" she said. "What if he's the one working behind the scenes, trying to hurt Buffy... Mom… and she doesn't actually know him at all? What if this is because of me?"

"As usual," said Alison, "I've got no clue what you're talking about. Bilis?"

Seo said nothing for a long moment, clearly lost in the sea of her own thoughts. "No," she decided, at last. "No. She recognizes the tapping. Whoever's doing that, she _must_ have met them at some point in her own past. It _must_ have made an impression. Or she wouldn't keep shuddering every time she does it."

"Tapping?" Alison asked.

Seo shrugged this off. Sat back down on the bench. "I… met this person," she explained. "In Cardiff. He knows me. Or… is going to know me. In my own future. Two hundred years ago. The problem is, he's in a lot of trouble, and I don't know if I should help him."

"Someone from your own future?" asked Alison. "200 years ago?" She gave a small laugh. "Wow. I suppose this means you really do work out how to travel in time, at some point."

"This person — he's trapped inside the rift," said Seo. "A prisoner of it. Because of _me_. He said… two hundred years ago, I was the one trapped there. And he switched places with me, to save my life. Turned himself into an unstable, unstuck point in space-time — just because he wanted to help me." She grimaced. "And then… according to him… I ran away. And never came back."

Alison stared at Seo. "Your own future or not… that sort of thing doesn't sound like you. At all."

"That's what I thought!" said Seo. "It seemed fishy. Odd. Not quite right. I thought either he was lying, or he wasn't telling the whole truth. So I figured… all right. I'll switch around the Rift Manipulator, so I can open the rift and—"

"Woah, woah, wait a tic," said Alison, holding up her hands. "I thought your mum said if you messed with the rift, you were grounded for the next three centuries."

Seo gave Alison a pointed look. "I wasn't going to _really_ open it," she said. "That's what the rift manipulator is for. A regulation point."

"Uh… huh…" said Alison.

"If I wanted to tear open the Cardiff Rift without bothering to stabilize it," said Seo, "I wouldn't _need_ a Rift Manipulator to do it. I could do it myself. By hand. Anytime I want." She grinned at Alison. "But I'm not _that_ irresponsible."

Seo… could open the rift… by herself… without any technology? All right, then. Alison had no idea how. But… if Seo said she could, Alison was guessing she was probably right.

"My plan was to pretend I was opening the rift and setting him free," said Seo, "when actually, I would really just be cracking the rift open a bit, keeping him on a very loose chain, in order to find out what he was really up to. Then, if I liked what he was doing, I could release him for real, and if I didn't, I could seal him up again, even more securely then before."

That sounded like a good plan to Alison. "So why didn't you?"

Seo fidgeted. "Well… Jack and Buffy… got really mad at me, when I asked them."

Alison sighed. "Let me guess," she said. "Everything you just told me — you didn't explain any of _that_ to your mum and Jack. When they put you on the spot, you just sort of freaked, like you usually do, spouted some rubbish at them, and hope they'd let you do what you wanted anyways."

Once again, Seo said nothing.

"So tell them the truth, and they'll let you!" said Alison. "I mean, long as you're not doing anything wrong—"

"Jack said it was too risky, anyways," said Seo. "All motives aside. Rebuilding the Rift Manipulator the way I wanted — he said it could unbalance the rift or even open it, accidentally."

"Would it?" asked Alison.

Seo kicked her shoes against the ground. "I have no idea," she confessed. "But Jack knows a lot more about the universe than I do. If he thinks I shouldn't… he's probably right."

Alison had to hand it to Seo. While she was usually stubborn, headstrong, determined, and impossible to stop, when someone she trusted told her not to do something, and she thought they had a valid point… she stopped.

Especially if the order came from either Jack or Buffy.

"Also… I don't think Bilis is lying," Seo added, very quietly.

Alison shook her head. "Sorry, what?"

Seo glanced up at Alison. "Mom told me… she has this theory," she said. "She thinks… my father didn't just leave Jack. She thinks… my father purposely ran away from him. Left him behind, immortal and alone and confused, trapped in a time not his own. Just because of… you know. The 'wrong' thing."

"Wrong thing?" Alison asked.

Seo rested her eyes back on the ground. "Maybe… that's just what Time People do," she said. "We see someone that's a weird point in space-time and shouldn't actually be there, and… we just… run away. Even if that person's in pain and hurt and we can help them. We run away and never come back."

Alison shook her head. "I don't know about Time People," she said. "But I know about _you_. And you'd never do that. Human, alien, odd-time-thing — doesn't matter. Long as they're innocent, if they're in trouble, you always try to help them." Alison crossed her arms. "Only reason future-you wouldn't help this trapped-in-the-rift bloke is if he deserved to be trapped there."

Seo said nothing for a long moment. Then, in a small voice, "I think you're wrong."

* * *

Buffy woke up. Breathing heavily.

Dreams. Prophecy dreams.

She reached for her phone, glancing at the clock to make sure the time difference worked in her favor, and immediately called Dawn.

"Yeah, we've been getting them, here, too," Dawn said. "Like, everyone. Ria's got a team of us all scrambling for info. But 'something is moving in the darkness' isn't exactly a whole lot to go on."

"Something is moving in the darkness?" Buffy asked. She shook her head. "No, that wasn't what I got. For me, it was more like… shadows. A stretching shadow, moving to encompass the whole world."

Dawn sighed. "Okay, I'll see what I can find on evil looming shadows. But I'm not making any promises."

* * *

"Right…" said Alison, with a slow nod. "So. We're looking through London for… shadows." She looked behind herself, at her own shadow, and pointed. "Hey! Look at that! I found one!"

"Maybe it's some kind of… shadow… darkness… monster?" Buffy proposed. She shrugged. "No clue. But we're going out looking for it." She squinted through the open door to the apartment. "Where's Seo?"

"I'm here!" shouted Seo, rushing out with butterfly net and jam jar in hand.

Buffy looked her up and down. Raised her eyebrows. "How are you catching shadows with…? No, wait. On second thought. Don't answer that. I'm sure I'll find out, soon enough." She spun around, and gestured at Seo and Alison. "Come on!"

So they searched. Searched through London. For something they didn't understand, which they wouldn't be able to catch even if they did, based on a warning… from a dream.

Yep.

This was Alison's life, pretty much.

(And she loved it.)

They searched for a few hours, before taking a break. Sitting down on a bench, trying to regroup, figure out how to make this work better.

"Seo could build some kind of… tracer," Alison proposed. "To find alien energies."

"Unless it's not in London, at all," Buffy said. "They're getting prophecy dreams over in Cleveland, too. It could be something to do with the Demon Civil War."

Seo was just staring off into the distance. A pensive frown on her face. Staring… at the nearby brick wall of an abandoned building, littered with posters and flyers. Band posters, event posters, Vote Saxon posters…

"Encompass the world?" Seo asked, very quietly. "Or… just one person?"

Buffy glanced over at her. "Huh?"

Seo snapped her head around. "The shadow. Stretching out, where we can't see. Sneaking up on us. Are you sure it was on… all of us? Or… just one of us?"

"I…" Buffy began.

And then…

Alison blinked. Rubbed her eyes, then blinked again. At the empty space on the bench, in front of her. The empty space where Buffy had been, only seconds ago.

Buffy had disappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

Seo jumped to her feet, eyes wide. Terrified.

"No," she breathed.

Alison looked around them. Buffy couldn't have just… popped out of existence. Alison had heard that time and time again. People didn't just go "pop" with nothing to show for it. There was always some reaction, some effect for the shift, some way to show…

"It's started," Seo muttered. She turned to Alison, grabbing her by the arms. "Alison, it's started! He said he'd take revenge. He said he'd kill everyone! My family. My friends. Everyone I know!"

Alison's eyes widened. "Wait, this is that… rift-bloke, again?"

"It… has to…" Seo stopped. Staring at the place where her mother had once been. A hint of hesitation flowing through her mind. "Unless… it's whoever's causing the tapping. Maybe he's the one doing this."

"Sorry?" said Alison.

Seo turned back to Alison. "Can you drive?"

"Yes," said Alison. "Course I can. But can't you…?" She stopped as she remembered. "Oh. Don't show up in photos. So… no license."

"Then come on!" Seo spun on her heels, and raced down the road, her eyes focused ahead.

Alison scurried after her. "But what… where…?"

Seo yanked something out of her pocket. Handed it to Alison. A business card for Bilis Manger, owner of A Stitch In Time.

"To stop the end of the world," Seo said.

* * *

Alison had kept proposing, on the way up, that — if they were going to Cardiff, anyways — shouldn't they phone Torchwood?

No.

No, they weren't telling Torchwood. As far as Jack Harkness knew, Seo was just a very inquisitive, curious troublemaker who wanted to open the rift as a novelty. He didn't know she was the Key. None of them knew she was the Key.

No one was ever supposed to know that.

Seo and Alison found it. The shop. In a Cardiff shopping mall — a small shop stuffed to the brim with antique clocks. Clocks dating from all across the past two centuries.

An obsession with time, then.

"Can I help you?" called a helpful-sounding voice from the back of the shop.

Seo narrowed her eyes. Recognizing the voice. Recognizing who it belonged to. Knowing what he was planning.

"Who are you?" Seo demanded, in a hard, low voice.

For a few seconds, the room was silent, save for the ticking of numerous clocks surrounding them. The tension flooding through Seo growing with every subtle tick-tock of the timepieces nearby.

"A voice I could never forget," said Bilis, his own voice filled with a deep sense of longing. He stepped out from the back of the shop, his eyes fixed on Seo. "A face I still can't erase from my memory."

Seo stepped forward, another step. "I said… who are you? What do you want from me?"

"Don't you like the name I chose?" said Bilis. He mused it over. "Manger. I thought it was fitting. Evoking the birth of another man who sacrificed himself to cleanse the sins of others. But, unlike me, _he_ wasn't forgotten."

Alison choked on an incredulous laugh. "Yeah, that was the part of Jesus I really liked, too," she said. "The part where he gets resurrected, and promptly goes on a massive murder spree, kidnapping and murdering the mothers, friends and loved ones of those Roman blokes."

Bilis' eyes flicked over to Alison. "And you brought along your friend Alison," he said. His eyes filled with something that almost amounted to a deep sorrow. "I'm sorry. So very sorry. About your brother."

Alison's jaw fell open. "What are you planning to do to…?!"

Seo stepped between Bilis and Alison, in an instant. "You leave Alison out of this," Seo said. "This doesn't involve her. This is between you and me." Her eyes narrowed. "So what do you want?"

The hint of a smile lit up Bilis' face, as he surveyed Seo with an affected air of lightness. "Nothing." He paused, his hands behind his back. "At the moment."

"I'll open the rift," Seo promised. "I'll release you from your prison. I'll do anything you want. Just give me back my mom, and stop whatever you're planning."

Bilis leaned against the side of the shop, picking up a clock in his hands, winding it up, gently. "Do you know," he asked, his voice quiet and calm, "who took your mother? What is happening to her, as we speak?"

Seo didn't answer.

"A man named… Ethan Rayne," mused Bilis. He set the clock back down on the table. "Interesting man. His timeline so interwoven with your mother's. He used his psychic essence to draw her all the way to California."

Seo sighed. "California. Half a world away. Course it would be."

Somewhere she couldn't get without traveling by plane. And the only way she could travel by plane would be involving Torchwood, so they could hack through the various stages of airport security that someone like Seo, unable to be picked up by machines, couldn't pass on her own.

"I'm not involving Torchwood in this," Seo told him. "You can forget that right now."

Bilis analyzed her, carefully. Curiously. "You haven't told them," he realized. Light dancing in his eyes. "All the time you've been here, your very presence causing the rift to grow more and more active, open wider and wider. And they still don't know… _you're_ the one causing it. Because you're the Key."

"What's… 'the Key'?" said Alison.

"Nothing," said Seo. She tried to shut out her friend's demanding stare, and focus on the immediate problem, as she turned back to Bilis. "Torchwood doesn't need to know… that sort of thing."

"No, of course you wouldn't tell them," said Bilis, musing the matter over. "Because they're terrified enough of aliens as is. If it wasn't for your mum and the ever-heroic Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood would have killed you, already." He chuckled. "And you call them your 'friends.'"

Seo didn't answer.

"But… well… if Captain Jack knew what you really were," Bilis continued. "If he knew what you could do to the rift — just by thinking about it — not even he'd want to keep you alive. It wouldn't be worth the risk."

Seo stepped back. She could feel her hands shaking, but tried to stop it.

"Oh, but… that's right," Bilis reflected. "There are two Keys, aren't there? You. And one other. A… Dawn Summers."

"You leave her out of this, too," Seo said.

Bilis turned to Alison. "It's a fascinating thing about the way Seo's constructed," he mused. "If you kill her, she regenerates. The Key-energies still remain mostly inside of her. A trickle effect. But the _other_ one, _she's_ human. You kill Dawn Summers, and the energy—"

"I said leave her out of this!" Seo shouted.

Bilis stopped talking, looking amused. He began to pace around Seo and Alison, in a slow circle, his eyes still firmly fixed on Seo.

"Do you know what Ethan Rayne is doing to your mother, right now?" Bilis asked her. "What will happen, if you don't go to her?" He offered her his hands. "Let me show you. Show you your mother's past, how it's intermingled with Ethan Rayne's."

Seo stood very still, for a long moment. Unable or unwilling to move. Her eyes fixed on those hands. Her mind filled with worries and concerns and possibilities and questions.

Then Seo took a deep breath. And grabbed up Bilis' hands in hers.

She gasped, as she was plunged into another place, another time — a vision so real, she could taste it, see it, smell it.

Sunnydale. Halloween night. A wiry looking man performing a spell to the demons of chaos. And then — a much younger Mom, dressed up as a noblewoman from 1775, transforming into her costume. Becoming a poor, frightened, helpless woman of the gentry, hunted down by vampires, very nearly killed when she was completely unable to fight back.

Flash!

Mom. Strapped down to a table. Unable to break free. That same wiry looking man looming over her, pulling back her hair, driving the ink needles into her skin as she writhed in pain, struggling desperately to escape. He didn't care. Seemed only mildly amused at her pain. As he tattooed her with the mark that would make the evil demon murder _her_ , and not _him_ …

Seo stepped back, struggling to catch her breath, as the connection broke between herself and Bilis. Her wide brown eyes fixed on Bilis' beady, cold black ones.

"That's the past," said Bilis. "The actual, real past. You can feel the validity of their time presence as well as I."

Yes. Seo could. Could taste it, sense it, feel it. The flow of time inside those visions — it hadn't been the flow you'd get from probabilities or potentials. Those had been real, actual facts.

"Your mother is in danger," said Bilis. "Terrible, terrible danger. And the only way to stop it is by traveling to her, yourself. Opening the rift, and leaping into its depths."

"No," said Seo.

For a few seconds, there was silence. Bilis stopped his pacing, eyeing her curiously.

"No?" he asked. He gestured around himself. "If you're not here to open the rift, then… why did you come?"

"You showed me, back at the Ritz, that — using the energy from the rift — I can walk through time," said Seo. "Step from one era of history to another. Just the same way you can."

"You can… what?" Alison said, her jaw dropping open.

Seo shushed her. Turned back to Bilis. "Time and space are connected. Their patterns woven together across the universe. If I can walk through time, I should be able to use the same trick to walk through space."

Bilis thought the matter over. Then, nodded. "I suppose… it would be possible…"

"And," Seo continued, "if you are 'enslaved to the rift', so to speak, while I'mthe one able to manipulate it — that means I can use and manipulate _your_ energies to stabilize whatever portal I open."

Bilis nodded, again, slowly. "Yes. I see." He smiled at her. "How very clever of you."

Seo felt another wave of uneasiness flood through her, as she noted Bilis' ease and unconcerned attitude towards the plan. Was this a trap, after all? Was she about to do something horrible, that she couldn't undo?

"But you always were clever, Seo," Bilis continued. "Clever, persistent, and passionate. And so determined to fix your mistakes." He paused, reflecting on this. "Except me. You never bothered to fix me."

Seo clutched the side of the end-table a little tighter. A clock chiming out the quarter hour, nearby. Was she prepared to risk this? Prepared to risk everything to save her mother?

"Three different places you could go," Bilis mused. "Three different groups of people to defend. Do you stay here and guard the rift, Torchwood, and Captain Jack? Do you save your mother from certain death? Or do you go to Cleveland, and save your other Key?" He took a step closer. "Whom do you save, Seo? Whom are you prepared to let die?"

Seo hesitated.

Thoughts and doubts and second guesses about what was going on flooding through her mind. Snippets of Jack, of Mom, of Dawn and all the others, all telling her not to mess with the rift.

Her own guilt, over whatever she might have done to Bilis Manger, two hundred years ago. What might have driven her to leave him when he needed her most. What might have made her run away when she could have helped him become better.

Seo pressed her hands against the sides of her head. Focused her thoughts.

No. Think rationally.

Of everyone in Cardiff, right now, who was the most likely to open the rift? To give in, in a weak moment, give Bilis everything he wanted without being able to stop? Definitely not Defend-The-Rift Jack and his team. Definitely not Gwen, Owen, Ianto, and Tosh.

Just her. Seo.

And as for Dawn… there was no use worrying about her. She was the grown-up, responsible version of Seo. And that far away from Cardiff, she'd be well out of Bilis' influence.

Seo met Bilis' gaze with her own.

If she was the weak link, the link that would be exploited to cause the deaths of everyone else, then it was her duty to stop herself. Get herself as far away from Cardiff as possible.

And to rescue her mother.

Which was what she'd really wanted to do, all along.

"Mom," said Seo, at long last. "I have to rescue Mom."

Alison stepped forward, taking Seo's hand in her own. "Then I'm rescuing her, too."

Seo swallowed, hard. Knowing… that if she did this, then anything that happened to Alison — or the Cardiff Rift, for that matter — once she left… would be her fault. _Her_ causing it. _Her_ conscience.

But she was the Key.

She could control whatever portal she opened. That was her responsibility.

"Let's do this," Seo told Bilis.

* * *

As this was taking place, in the Hub of Torchwood Cardiff, Ianto was chasing after Owen — who held a series of blueprints for the Rift Manipulator in his hands. Ianto's face was livid.

"It's a trap!" Ianto shouted. "Bilis wanted you to find them!"

Owen leafed through them. Scoffing. "Why?"

"To provoke the rift," shouted Ianto. "To incite total chaos and destruction!"

"I'm tired of being in awe of the rift!" Owen shouted back. "Jack and Tosh are stuck in 1941, at the Ritz, and this is the only way to get them back!" He waved the blueprints in Ianto's face. "Do you understand? We are going to open the Cardiff Rift."


	4. Chapter 4

At first, the transition had gone smoothly.

Hand in hand with Alison, Seo had stepped forward. Feeling the energies parting around her, like a curtain, channeling them through first herself and then the trapped energies of Bilis Manger, sealing the pathway behind her with every step.

And then…

For no apparent reason, the entire thing bucked. Shook. The energies searing across Seo's skin, burning through her, shattering and splintering and crumbling nearby. Alison gave a startled cry, and Seo tugged her forward, focusing everything she had into controlling the energies of the rift. Focusing all her attention, all her concentration, every spark of Keyness she had into forcing the rift to do her bidding.

There was something down there. Something she could feel. Something trapped, just outside the universe. It wanted to get in.

And Seo was damned if she was going to let it.

She didn't know what she'd done. Didn't know how she'd managed to tear the rift apart like this. But now the rift was cracking, cracking along her trajectory, and it had to be her fault, had to be because of what she'd done, there was no other reason…

Didn't matter why. It was broken. Seo was fixing it.

She and Alison stumbled out of the portal, the California stars twinkling out through the clear night sky, California tree leaves rustling in the wind, the crack in space and time they'd used to get here sealing itself away, nice and neat, as if it had never been there at all.

Seo collapsed to the ground. Curling in on herself.

It was gone. Seo knew the crack was gone. She could _feel_ that she'd sealed up the crack!

So… why?! Why this terrible feeling?! Why this horrible sensation, inside of her, this horrible feeling of splintering, cracking, breaking?!

Alison bent down, tried to help Seo up. Seo took the hand, gratefully, as she focused her attention away from the splintering and cracking feeling. She gathered up her strength, trying to get to her feet.

But… it was so difficult. She was… so weak.

"The portal," Seo breathed. "The rift. I tried… to control it." But it had just been so hard. Harder than she'd ever imagined. If she'd had the rift manipulator working on her side, maybe then it could have been manageable. Maybe then…

But they'd never let her touch the rift manipulator.

"You look terrible," Alison said, draping Seo's arm across her shoulders, as Seo nearly toppled over, again.

"Thanks," muttered Seo.

Truth was… she felt terrible. Tired and drained and worn out. Alison led her over to a bench, nearby, sat her down, let her breathe.

Seo consolidated her remaining energy. Mom was in trouble. And Seo needed all her strength and wits about her to rescue her.

She looked up at the starry sky. Feeling a nip in the air.

"So much for 'Sunny California'," she muttered, a tired smile on her face.

Alison frowned. "Sunny," she repeated. Then turned to Seo. "Wait a tic, why isn't it sunny?"

Seo shrugged.

"There's an eight hour time difference, right?" said Alison. "And we set off at 4 in the afternoon, our time. That should make it 8:00 am, here. It should be daytime."

Seo's eyes focused, as she realized… Alison was right. They'd been travelling through space, not through time. They should have wound up here bright and early in the morning.

Unless…

"The energies," Seo realized. "I couldn't control them. The rift fractured and splintered around me. We must have lurched forwards in time." She looked down at her hands, a growing horror spreading across her. "We might already be too late."

Alison spotted a library nearby. Pointed to it. "Library. That'll have computers."

It looked closed and locked up, of course. But when had that ever stopped Seo and Alison before?

"You up for walking?" Alison asked, helping Seo up.

Seo nodded, disentangling herself from Alison, and determinedly stepping forward.

She still felt weak. Her limbs watery. Her hearts thudding far too rapidly, and her breathing still far too fast. But she had enough energy to get the job done. Find Ethan Rayne, find Mom, and make everything all right, again. She had to.

There was no alternative.

Alison smiled at her friend. And together, they set off on their latest adventure.

* * *

Seo went through the library, disabling alarms and cameras and erasing security footage. So no one would know that they were there. Alison, in the meantime, was by the computers, booting one up so she could try to find Ethan Rayne.

And the date.

A whoop from Alison, as the computer desktop booted up. "It's only been a day!" she cried to Seo. "No, wait, with time difference — less than that. There's no way someone could best your mum in just a day."

"Just a day," came a quiet voice to Seo's left.

Seo turned, sharply, to discover… Bilis Manger, standing there. Just beside her. She stepped back, her guard up. "How did you…?"

"When you touched my hands, I created a psychic connection between us," said Bilis. "I'm a specter of your imagination, now, Seo."

Seo reached out, and her hand went right through him. Someone not really there. A trick from her own mind.

"You made the choice," said Bilis. "Whom to save. Whom to let die. Check the news. And ask yourself — are you prepared to live with the consequences?"

Seo shuffled backwards. Then turned, and ran back towards Alison, stumbling over every step. "Headlines," she panted, grabbing a chair to stop herself from collapsing. "What… happened… since…?"

Alison quickly clicked off the window she'd been looking at. Turned around, and shot Seo a grin. "Big headline? 'Buffy Summers Kicks Ethan Rayne's Arse'."

Seo gave Alison a pointed look.

"All right," Alison admitted. "It's 'Cow Spot Looks Like Former President'." She turned back to the computer, opening up a new window, beginning to type. "But I'm sure your mum is just—"

Seo grabbed the keyboard from Alison, and tapped a few keys. The previous window flooded the screen, showing headlines of death, devastation, and destruction. Time anomalies ripping apart the world, left and right, old diseases being reintroduced in hospitals, Roman soldiers jumping forwards into now, without a clue what was going on, a cluster of arrows being passed through a warped spot of space-time, and hitting a school class.

Seo's breath caught in her throat.

_She'd_ caused that.

Her fault.

"I have to go back," Seo said, dropping the keyboard and trying to dart for the exit.

Alison caught her in two strides, blocking her way and holding her up by the shoulders. "Seo, don't."

"It was… stupidity," Seo insisted. "Selfishness. I wanted to save Mom, instead of thinking of the greater good! I should never have left Cardiff. They need me there." She tried to push past Alison, but her energy was so sapped, she nearly wound up toppling to the ground, instead.

"God, Seo, just look at yourself!" snapped Alison. "You can barely walk three steps. If you go back to Cardiff, you'll kill yourself!"

"I have to fix my mistakes," Seo said. "If the rift's fracturing, I have to—"

"Find your mum," Alison said. She stared deep into Seo's eyes. "Seo, listen to me. I don't know what this… 'Key' is you keep going on about. But I know your mum. She's the all-around expert on closing world-destroying portal-rift things. If there's one person out there who can fix this, it's her."

Seo looked back at Alison. Realization dawning on her.

"Mom," she repeated.

"Yes," said Alison. "The one we're here to rescue, remember?" She put an arm around Seo, and tried to lead her back to the computers. "Just sit down. Conserve your strength. And let me try to find her."

"Yes," Bilis agreed, from inside Seo's mind. "Sit down and do nothing while the world falls apart around you. And know… that you caused it all to happen."

* * *

Back in Torchwood, Jack and his team had been taking in the news. Across the globe, temporal anomalies were being sighted. People and animals displaced in time. Everywhere…

Except, for some reason, California.

Which was a little odd.

Jack assumed it had something to do with Buffy's destroying the Sunnydale Hellmouth. Other than that… he honestly had no idea why the rift would exhibit that sort of behavior.

He and his team were now gathered around the Hub computers, as Tosh typed, frantically. Pulling up data, superimposed across a map of the world.

"I've run a profile," Tosh explained, "on every reported temporal anomaly, and tracked any physical or temporal pattern."

The map showed the location of Cardiff, with a great big red dot in the center of the screen. And, branching out from there, lines to everywhere else around the globe.

"The cracks in time trace back here," Jack explained, "to the rift. This city — this Hub — is the center." He turned to his team. "What you're seeing around the world are ripples and aftershocks. The rift is splintering because," turning on Owen, "of _you_."

"What?" Owen said.

Jack's dark, angry eyes bore into him. "You," he said, "opened the rift without knowing what you were doing. You've caused the temporal cracks to widen. Time is seeping through!"

Owen spluttered for an excuse.

"All I can say is… you're really, really lucky," Jack said, turning back to Tosh and the others, "it wasn't a whole lot worse."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm totally zonked. We're fully booked on Memorial Day, and I'm working my butt off trying to get everything functional. I worked until 8 pm, today, and wound up skipping breakfast to get more work done. Haven't had time to do much writing.
> 
> Did try to work on another story, but got about 2 paragraphs in before I was dragged away by our maid, who took the whole day off and only clocked on at 6 pm. Which meant no rest for the Shoshi! Sigh. I really don't get paid enough for this job, you know. (500 a month, which means... I'm pretty sure, at the moment, my boss is paying me 32 cents an hour. Maybe less. Geeze, that's depressing.)
> 
> Speaking of paying, Amazon's just announced that you can sell fanfic for Kindle. I don't know what this will mean for me. I think I'll wait until I'm a little less exhausted before figuring out what to do about this or what it means.
> 
> If my readers have anywhere near as little money as I do, maybe they won't bother to pay for these stories at all.
> 
> God, I need to go to bed!
> 
> Anyways. Sorry about the griping.
> 
> Enjoy the story!

"Oh," said Alison, staring at what she'd just uncovered.

Seo had been drifting off, her eyes half-closed, trying to regain her drained energy. Alison had never seen her quite this drained before. Seo had always been more like the energizer bunny — never needing a break, never needing a rest, never needing much of anything.

Seo started up out of her rest, wide-eyed. "You found him."

"No, not exactly," said Alison. "Just… here. See?" She clicked through, showing Seo the file she'd discovered. The photo of a man labeled Ethan Rayne, standing beside someone who looked like… a much, much younger version of…

"Giles," said Seo.

"I think they were childhood friends," said Alison, continuing to click through files. "Or childhood enemies. There's all sorts, here, about them and dark magic and demons and whatnot."

Seo processed this, a thoughtful gleam in her eye.

Alison flipped out her mobile. Roaming, but functional. Eight hour time difference, so Giles should be up by now. Probably at work, dealing with world-ending-type things, with the Ministry. She scrolled through her contacts, looking for Rupert Giles.

Seo snatched the phone out of her hands. "Don't!"

Alison frowned. "Why not?" she demanded. "If Giles knows something about Ethan Rayne, we can…"

"They'll hear you!" Seo whispered.

"I thought you disabled all the cameras," Alison pointed out.

"No, not that!" Seo said. "Not here. It's… Archangel." She leaned in closer, glancing around herself, suspiciously. "If you use Archangel, they'll hear you. Hear everything."

Alison shook her head. "Brilliant," she muttered. "You've chosen the perfect time to go mad, Seo."

Seo sighed, shook her head. "No, I'm not… listen, just… not him. Not Giles. He's their mole. Their informational leech. Everything they've thrown at Mom, every demon they've resurrected… it's all things _he_ was around for. He's how they're finding out."

Alison nodded, slowly. "Are you ever going to get tired of talking in riddles?"

Seo straightened, seeming almost offended. "I'm not 'talking in riddles'!" she insisted. "I'm telling you what I know." She hesitated. "I just… don't know very much. Yet."

"Right, then," said Alison, turning back to the computer and trying to find an address. Some record of an Ethan Rayne buying or renting a place, nearby. Data trails, emails, anything she could discover.

And… there! That was the address.

That was where Ethan Rayne was hiding.

"But I know… whoever Saxon is… Mom's met him, before," Seo whispered.

"What?" asked Alison, mapquesting the address and transcribing the directions onto a slip of paper. "Your mum's met Harold Saxon?"

"No, it's just… never mind," Seo dismissed. "Forget it. This is more important, at the moment. I'll deal with that later."

* * *

"There's nothing here," said Alison, glancing around the completely empty flat. Or… she thought it was empty. Hard to tell, when it was this dark.

"Over here!" said Seo, rushing towards a room she'd spotted at the far end. She yanked open the door. "Maybe there's…" Her voice fell, suddenly overcome by shock, grief, sorrow. "No. No. Please, no."

Alison crept up behind her. There, in the center of the room, was a long, steel gurney. Outfitted with heavy leather straps. A tray of surgical implements knocked to the floor and scattered nearby. And… blood, everywhere. All over the floor and walls.

Human blood.

"He killed her," Seo whispered.

"No," Alison insisted. No, Seo's mum wasn't a pushover. "No, I can't believe that."

Seo's lower lip trembled, as she stubbornly tried to keep herself from crying. Her hand clenched tight against the doorframe. Her breath long and deep, every single bit of it trying to suppress sobs.

"Seo, think this through, rationally," Alison urged her. "If that blood had been your mum's, it would have been on the gurney and the surgical instruments, right? But it's not. Your mum broke free. Attacked Ethan Rayne. This is _his_ blood, Seo, not hers! _His_!"

Seo glanced back at Alison, her face looking like she wanted, so badly, to believe her. But… just… couldn't.

But Alison was certain.

She rushed into the room, towards the gurney. Showed Seo the straps. The leather straps… that had been broken through. "There was a struggle, see?" Alison said. "Ethan Rayne… he tied her up, yes. But she escaped. Fought back." She looked round herself, at the tumbled books on the ground. "Knowing your mum, she probably worked out his whole plan. Raced off to stop it. She—"

The sudden rhythm of drums, as the opening beats to Sophie Zelmani's _I'll Remember You_ rang through the air.

The ringtone for Buffy's mobile.

Seo and Alison scrambled for it. Found the mobile, left on the floor as if dropped there, in the midst of a struggle. Dropped… just beside a pool of blood.

Exactly the right distance… for Buffy to have fallen… and dropped her mobile…

"She wouldn't have left this," Seo insisted, picking it up. Reading the caller ID. "Blocked. Must be Jack." She answered it, put the phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

Alison held her breath. Hoping that Jack wouldn't yell at Seo too much for what she'd done. God, Seo must be on the world's most massive guilt-trip already, with her mum no one knew where, and the world falling apart around her, and some future-ex-boyfriend aged 200 years coming back and taking his revenge on a her that hadn't met him, yet.

The last thing Seo needed, right now, was Jack cursing her out.

Seo's eyes were fixed into the distance. No, not… into the distance. At one specific spot in the distance. As if she were staring at… someone in particular. Someone who didn't exist, wasn't there.

As the voice on the other end of the phone shouted, Seo's eyes grew wider and wider, still fixed on the empty spot in the room.

She snapped the phone shut, cutting Jack's tirade off in mid-sentence. Her eyes turning cold, thunderous.

"You knew this was going to happen," Seo hissed.

Alison frowned. She looked back and forth at the empty air Seo was speaking to, and then at Seo. The frown deepened. "Are you talking to me?"

Seo stepped past Alison, her eyes still fixed intently ahead of her. "Just stop this," she demanded of the air. "Stop all of this. And I'll do anything you want."

A pause, as if she were listening. Alison squinted. Was there someone… she couldn't see? A ghost? A psychic projection? A being at the wrong dimensional resonance for human eyes? Or could Bilis choose to show himself only to Seo?

There had to be an explanation. Seo didn't usually threaten thin air for no reason.

Although, there had been that one time…

"No tricks," Seo promised. "No traps. I'll do whatever you want. Just stop this. Now."

Another pause. Seo's face fell, as her eyes lost focus, and she glanced around herself, registering her surroundings. Registering Alison.

"So… your boyfriend from the future," said Alison, "is from 200 years ago, is a ghost, is a psychopath, and… is a stalker?"

Seo didn't answer. Just backed against the far wall of the room, hugging her arms, her face bent in a sudden twist of guilt and pain and anger.

Alison spun around herself. Right. So… Seo was being stalked by someone or something that Alison didn't completely understand. Due to events that neither of them knew about. And her mum had disappeared.

Which meant Seo probably wasn't going to be much help, right now. And the only person with a level enough head to work this all out, at the moment, was Alison. Least, until Seo could calm down enough to be helpful.

Right. Alison could do this. She'd watched _a lot_ of CSI.

"So… one day ago, your mum got teleported here — or something like that," Alison surmised. "Appeared here, shocked and confused to find herself suddenly somewhere completely different for no apparent reason. Ethan Rayne must have taken advantage of that confusion. Knocked her out. Then strapped her to…" spinning on her heel, and pointing to the gurney, "that gurney."

Seo nodded, sullenly. Said nothing.

"Until she woke up," Alison continued. "Broke free. Worked out what was going on, and fought Ethan."

Seo's sullen expression wavered, a moment, as she stepped forward, her eyes fixed on an open book on the floor. A book that wasn't crinkled or dropped to the ground, like the others. One that had been placed there, deliberately, open to a specific page — although the wind from the open window nearby had blown the pages since this had all happened. There were smears of blood on the floor nearby.

Seo picked it up. A… spell book.

"She was escaping," said Seo. "Part way out the door. When he stopped her." She flipped through the book, to where the blood-smeared fingerprints indicated it had been opened, before. "Using a spell designed to stun her." Seo turned to the front of the book. The embossed name of the author on the cover. "B. Manger."

Alison cursed inside her head. "Bilis Manger," she muttered. "Again. Brilliant."

"Mom must have dropped her mobile," Seo continued. "When Ethan knocked her out." She glanced out across the room, at the pool of blood. The smeared pool of blood. "Then Ethan dragged her… somewhere else."

"Here," said Alison, pointing at the end trail of the smeared blood. In the middle of the floor. Not far from the dropped gurney.

They both stopped in their CSI-type investigation.

"Then what?" asked Seo.

Alison thought, furiously, trying to work it out. Trying to figure out what had happened, here. Which was when… her eyes fell on the dropped surgical instruments.

Dropped onto the ground, just beside the gurney. Right where Buffy would have been. A steel tray covering them up.

Alison stepped forward. Whisked the tray away from the surgical instruments. To reveal…

The surgical instruments. Laid out for them to see, in a specific pattern. A clue, left by Buffy, just before whatever had happened… happened. Two different letters and numbers, and… in the middle of them… a torn piece of paper, torn out of a book, bearing one specific symbol.

"One, A," Alison read, from the surgical implements message. She paused, reflected. "Or… I, A."

Buffy's mobile went off, again, and Seo took one look at it, then silenced the call. Shoved it into a pocket.

Seo tip-toed over, her steps hesitant. Squinted at the message left for them. Then crouched down and picked up the scrap of paper, analyzing it in the moonlight. The symbol… of a trident, with an extra curly cue piece sticking out, on the left.

"It's the tattoo," said Seo. "That Bilis showed me, in that vision." She looked over at Alison. "Mom was trying to tell us that this is Ethan Rayne. She wanted us to know — that clue — it's where we can find him."

"At… 1A," said Alison.

"First and A," Seo corrected. "They're street names."

A small smile crept up Alison's face. Oh, that was more like the normal, brilliant Seo she knew. Making those impossible leaps of logic that always put everyone else to shame.

"Mom must have known this place would be found," said Seo. "That, if she dropped this symbol, Giles would find out about it. She must have hoped Giles would come rescue her."

Not knowing, of course, that Seo and Alison would screw up the universe getting there to rescue her, themselves, instead.

"Come on," said Seo, trying to rush out of the flat, but stumbling and lurching forward, instead. Driven by nothing more than adrenaline and hope and sheer determination. "Intersection of First and A street. We've got to find Mom!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... My computer died. As in won't turn on died. I'm updating this story using my iPhone and Mozy Backup. Hopefully, not too many mistakes!

Seo was still stubbornly trying to look as though she were completely fine, even though she could barely walk. Alison was just trying to work out… what Seo had actually done, when they'd walked through the rift. What could she have done? Alison might not want Seo to kill herself trying to undo it, but…

Whatever they'd done to get here, it must have been horrible. Tear-apart-the-universe horrible.

Something they shouldn't have been able to do.

And Alison recalled — with a sudden feeling of intense dread inside of her — what Bilis had said about Seo's abilities. Why Seo didn't want Torchwood to know she was the Key.

Because Seo could wield a huge amount of influence over the rift — without needing a manipulator at all. Needing nothing but her own mind. Enough influence that… Torchwood might actually… might be afraid enough to… kill…

Alison shoved the thought aside. She didn't care what Seo _could_ do. Alison knew that Seo _wouldn't_. Would never, ever endanger the lives of everyone on Earth by acting irresponsibly. Alison knew it, and so did Torchwood. They'd never kill her just because of what she _could_ do.

…would they?

Seo stumbled, and Alison came up beside her friend, taking her by the arm and helping her forward.

"I'm fine," Seo assured her, but clutched at Alison as if she could barely stand without her. "It's just… the rift. The splintering. It… it just…" She winced, as if in pain. "It hurts, Alison. I can feel it. And it hurts so much."

Seo leaned a little more heavily on Alison, still attempting to pretend she was fine.

"This… 'feeling' the rift… it all has something to do with your being 'the Key', right?" Alison guessed.

Seo didn't answer. Just leaned against Alison.

"Look, maybe you should take a breather," Alison suggested.

Seo shook her head. "I told you, I'm…" She stopped. Her eyes staring into the distance, her face transforming, her cheeks lighting up in a rush of happy excitement. And, with an energy Alison didn't realize Seo still had, she raced forwards, shouting, "Mom!"

Alison darted after her, as Seo rushed around a corner, into an abandoned alleyway. And stopped just short of running into Seo, who had halted with such suddenness that Alison had barely caught it.

Then Alison noticed the figure in the alleyway.

Buffy. Standing there. Scuffed up, scraped, bruised, but generally uninjured physically. That wasn't the problem. Her hand rested against the wall, and her countenance looked entirely lost, confused. As if she couldn't comprehend anything she was seeing.

"Mom?" Seo asked, a little hesitantly, taking a step forward.

Buffy turned her head. Regarding Seo without a single spark of recognition in her eyes. Then turned to Alison, the same exact expression on her face. As if… she had no idea that Seo was anything special to her at all.

Then her eyes fixed back on Seo, and she gave a dopey grin. Walked forwards, reaching out towards Seo.

"Shiny," she said.

The horror on Seo's face multiplied, as she caught Buffy's hand in hers. Regarding her mother with tears beginning to sprout in her eyes.

"No," Seo was saying. She swept her mom into a tight hug, and when Buffy didn't hug back, Seo squeezed her eyes shut a little tighter. "No, no, no."

"He's… erased her memories," said Alison. "Amnesia, or retcon, or…"

"More than that," said Seo. She swallowed around a lump in her throat. "He's… drained her brain completely dry. No mental cohesion. No memories. No nothing." She looked back at Alison. Large, hurt eyes. "Mom's… gone."

* * *

Xander leapt over a knocked-over piece of furniture, three Slayers trailing behind, as they all zipped past Dawn. Dawn stood, staring, unable to move, for a moment. Xander skittered to a stop, grabbed Dawn by the arm, and yanked her forward.

"If you don't want to be Jurassic Parked," he said, "then run!"

Behind them, a flock of dinosaurs screeched, then pounced, teeth razor sharp, scales glinting beneath the lights.

"But… but… there aren't dinosaurs in the Hellmouth!" Dawn shouted at Xander, over the hissing screeching.

"Tell _them_ that!" Xander said.

They ran up three flights of stairs, before ducking into a nearby door and barricading it with furniture. Dawn shushed them, and they all went completely still, hoping the dinosaurs would pass them by.

The sound of dinosaurs, just outside the door, sniffing, hissing, trying to figure out where the group had gone.

Then the shout of two dozen Slayers, and the sounds of a full-scale monster fight outside.

"Thank you, Ria," Dawn breathed. "Trust her to be on the ball." She double checked that everyone in the room was ready, then threw open the door, and jumped out to join the fight.

In five minutes, the dinosaurs were dead.

But Ria wasn't there.

"Ria…?" Dawn asked Heather.

"Out in the field," said Heather. "The Traditional Demons used the temporal weirdness to make a strategic maneuver. She's trying to minimize the damage. Said you were in charge of stopping whatever's causing the temporal weirdness in the first place."

"So," Faith said to Dawn, wiping dinosaur blood off her sword. "Traditional Demons went a bit more old-time than we thought, huh? What do we do, now?"

Dawn took a deep breath. She had this gut feeling that these dinosaurs and time anomalies had nothing to do with the Demon Civil War. Or the Hellmouth. That the Traditional Demons were just taking advantage, and hadn't caused this, themselves.

"There are dinosaurs, Roman soldiers, colonial American soldiers, and future-looking people — appearing everywhere," said Dawn. "That doesn't sound like a dimensional fracture, like a Hellmouth. I think someone's opened up a time rift."

Everyone stared at her.

"You think the Old-Timer Demons are opening up time rifts, now?" said Kennedy. She groaned. "This war just keeps getting better and better."

"If the Old-Timers are attempting something like this, they must be getting desperate," added Amanda. "That's something, at least."

"Yeah — I don't think the demons were the ones to open it," said Dawn. She turned to Faith. "Get a group of Slayers to finish off the dinosaurs and mop up the rest of the temporal mess in Cleveland," she commanded, "while the rest of us try to figure out which rift got opened, when, how, and why." She flipped out her cell phone. "Meantime, I've got a phone call to make."

"Getting rift-closing tips from B?" Faith guessed.

Dawn gave a smile. "I don't need 'tips' to close an unstable time rift," she said. "I just need one other person."


	7. Chapter 7

Alison and Seo found the corner of First and A street. It was pretty obvious which house they were looking for… it was the house that had all the lights still on, even in the early morning, and whose lawn displayed a small statue of a chaos-demon.

Seo picked the lock to the door easily. Shoved open the door, to reveal a living room — ill lit, but still with the lights on, littered with statues of chaos gods and evil-looking charms. Magic books lining every wall. And there, in the center of it all, was Ethan Rayne himself.

He looked like someone who'd just been in a fight. Scraped up and bandaged all over, a bruise across his forehead, and he was limping, slightly, with every step. It looked, to Alison, like Buffy had creamed him, thought she'd gotten off free, and been caught unawares while escaping.

Ethan glanced up at Seo and Alison, who were leading a still utterly bewildered Buffy in through the door. Then they stopped, and stood in the doorway, barring Ethan's only escape route, their arms crossed, eyes determined and biting and angry.

"Well," said Ethan, studying them, carefully. He seemed a little awkward. "This is… unexpected." He glanced around them, as if looking for someone else. "Ripper not with you, then?"

Ripper?

Seo didn't seem concerned with the comment. Marched up to Ethan Rayne, struggling to keep her anger in check. "What," she growled, "have you done to my mom?"

Ethan laughed. "Oh, so _that's_ who you are! You're her…" Then stopped. Paused. Trying to work out all the dates and ages in his mind. "Wait. That doesn't make sense."

Seo lunged at him, grabbing him up by the shirt and slamming him against a wall, fury and adrenaline racing through her, burning through her remaining energy. Her eyes stared into his. "What. Have. You. Done?!"

"Definitely her kid," Ethan muttered. Then, when it looked like Seo was about to deck him, he raised up his hands in surrender. "Look, this is nothing personal. Really. I've got nothing against you or your mum. I just wanted to get back at Ripper—"

"Ripper?" asked Alison.

"Rupert," said Ethan. "Giles. But, turns out, he's got… friends in high places, now. Couldn't get to him. Not directly."

"So you went after Seo's mum, instead," Alison realized. "To get back at your long-time rival emotionally, rather than physically." Her face turned bitter. "You heartless git."

Buffy looked around herself, still unsure of what was going on, unable to process anything around her. Her eyes fixed on a magical gemstone, sparkling in the moonlight that trickled in through the windows. She smiled. Then walked over, reaching out for it.

Alison grabbed her up. Tugged her back.

Buffy seemed shocked. Looking at Alison as if she'd completely forgotten that Alison was there at all.

Seo, in the meantime, jerked Ethan, harder, against the wall, grip tightening on his shirt, fire running through her. "Fix her. Now."

"I… can't!" Ethan squeaked. He gestured at the vacant Buffy. "See for yourself. I drained her mind. Destroyed everything inside of it. Anything that was once in there is gone. Long gone!"

"I don't believe you," said Seo.

"Neither do I," Alison chimed in.

"No, really!" Ethan said. "I—"

"I read up on you," Alison put in. "You're supposed to be all about causing chaos. Which is interesting. Because… there's chaos everywhere else in the world. But not here. Not in California."

"There's another part of your plan," Seo agreed. "Something else you're up to. Something chaos-causing. And I want to know what that is."

"It's nothing," Ethan said. "It didn't work! Your mum is gone. Accept that."

Seo thought this over, very hard. Hesitating, for just a second. Then, she let Ethan go. Stepped back. "All right," she said. A small, sly smile spreading across her face. "I believe you. You drained everything from Mom's mind. Even the sparks of mental cohesion holding it all together. And now… there's nothing you can do to get that back."

Alison wasn't sure she liked where Seo was going with this. "Seo…"

Seo ignored her. Reached a hand out, and grabbed Ethan's head. "So," she continued, her voice cool and impassive, "here's how this is going to work. I'm going to suck the energy from _your_ mind. And give it to _her_. She might not remember me, but at least she'll still be Buffy."

Ethan stared at her. "What?"

"Seo, are you sure you want to…?" Alison started.

Seo snapped her head around. "I have to. For _Mom_."

Ethan's eyes went wide, as a steady energy-related pulsing began to grow from the back of his head — just where Seo had placed her hand. He gasped, writhed, but Seo held him in place.

"No, wait!" Ethan shouted, as the hand began to duck inside his mind.

Seo withdrew the hand. A smile on her lips. "Yes?"

"Her… mind's still out there," Ethan told them. "I just transferred it. Inside a monster. An evil creature with no soul, no humanity, no conscience."

Seo and Alison both stared at him. Jaws falling open.

"You put all the knowledge and fighting skills of a Slayer," Alison said, "into a monster without a soul?" She shook her head. "You're not just heartless. You're completely mad!"

Seo grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him along after her. "In that case," she said, "you're showing us where it is." She grabbed a set of car keys from the key-hook nearby, and tossed them to Alison. "And then… you're going to change Mom back."

* * *

"Turn left!" Ethan shouted.

Alison, behind the wheel, swerved the car in the direction Ethan said.

"No, not right, you thick-headed girl!" Ethan snapped. " _Left_!"

Alison huffed. Bloody America, where the left turn wasn't the easy turn, like it was supposed to be. And it didn't help having a brain-drained Buffy in the passenger seat, constantly trying to open the doors, reach for things on Alison's side of the car, throw bits of paper and books at Alison, etc.

Or that the area they were driving in had experienced a power-cut, and none of the street lamps were working.

And then there was Buffy's mobile.

It had been going off, non-stop, for the last five minutes, now. And Alison could guess why. With the rest of the world going to hell, fast, she was probably getting calls from every world-saving organization out there, asking her how to fix whatever Seo had mucked up with the rift.

"Shiny girl," Buffy said, turning in her seat, and looking back at Seo. "Pretty girl."

Course, Buffy wasn't going to be much help to anyone, the way she was, now.

"Why does she keep calling you shiny?" Alison asked Seo, as she rounded the block to get back to the intersection she'd screwed up the turn on.

"No reason," Seo put in, a little too quickly.

Alison stopped at the intersection, and turned the correct direction.

"Now… sharp right!" said Ethan.

Alison swerved the car left, before she had time to think about switched directions, and only realized her mistake when it was too late to correct it. She slammed her foot on the brakes, as the car careened off the road, the nearby tree colliding with her side of the car and screeching across the metal.

She managed to get the car to stop. Then took a few deep, shaky breaths.

Then Seo gave a loud gasp of pain, and Alison spun in her seat, to find Ethan slipping a hypodermic needle out of Seo's arm. He then slammed the car door open and leapt out.

"She's got about an hour to live!" he called to them, as he raced off in between the houses, climbing fences and scrambling away, cloaked by the thick darkness of night.

Alison's eyes widened. Her breath caught in her throat. Poison. He'd poisoned Seo. Poisoned her and run off! And now, she was going to die, and there was nothing Alison could do, except…

"Don't just sit there!" Seo shouted. "Get after him!"

"But… you…" Alison started.

Seo gritted her teeth. "Not fatal," she said. "Not for me. Just need to…" She grunted, squeezing her eyes shut. Then hissed. "Not enough energy."

Alison opened her mouth to speak, but Seo cut in, first.

"Coma," Seo said. "Only way to heal. Few hours, I'll be fine." She pointed into the night. "Just… get him!"

Alison didn't have to be asked twice. She leapt out of the car, then grabbed up Buffy, who could run a whole heck of a lot faster than she could. And they sprinted into the night.


	8. Chapter 8

Seo fell into the blackness. The darkness.

Something was moving. Deep down inside of it. She could feel something… moving. Waking up.

"My insurance," came Bilis' voice.

Seo turned, in the darkness, to find him there. Standing in the darkest depths of her mind. She backed away from him, slowly, her eyes fixed on his.

"It's really quite simple," Bilis explained to her, his hands in his pockets, as he approached. "You are going to do everything I want. Or… I'll release him."

The something moved, again. And Seo thought… she could feel… something familiar about the creature. Something that sent shivers up her spine. Something…

Seo stumbled back, with sudden alarm. As she placed the feeling of this creature in her senses. Stared at Bilis in utter horror.

"Where'd you find it?" she breathed.

"The entire species was cast out before time began," said Bilis. "Disowned from all universes. Occasionally, one flies too close, gets trapped at the bottom of a rift or a Hellmouth. Manages to enter the universe."

"That creature, it's like… the First," said Seo. "The Beast of Krop Tor. It's the same creature. Younger, smaller, less powerful at the moment, but still the same species."

Everything that had happened in the universe before their own. The balance shifting, the forces of evil overpowering the Disciples of Light. The Disciples of Light tearing down the universe in order to become the Powers that Be.

It was all going to happen, again.

It was going to happen, here.

"The son of the Beast," Bilis mused. "I think I'll use that. Very poetic. Evocative."

"What do you want from me?" Seo demanded.

"Why, nothing," said Bilis, with a shrug. He paused. "For the moment." He adjusted his silk cravat. "I just wanted to make sure… while you were out cold, unable to wake up… that you knew. What you'd caused. What you made happen in the rest of the world." He tilted his head. "Don't you want to see?"

But Seo had no chance to answer, before she felt herself falling… falling…

And tumbled into a sea of visions.

* * *

"We're helpless!" Owen shouted at Jack, chasing after him as he went to his office. "Everything we've been doing so far — it's just putting sticking plasters on gaping wounds!"

Jack spun around to face Owen. "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest," Owen snapped, "that you lead us and tell us what our instructions are!"

This was all Jack needed. The rift was cracking open, time leaking out at the seams, and although Jack happened to know the world-expert on closing massive unstable rifts… she wasn't answering her phone.

Where was Buffy?

"Owen…" Gwen sighed.

"No, come on," Owen said, looking back at the others. "You're all thinking it too." Pointing at Jack. "He's the big man, here. He keeps all the secrets." Spinning around to face Jack, again. "Well, now's the time to tell us a few and tell us how the hell we're gonna get out of this!"

Jack felt the rage boil inside of him. As he realized… he'd been asked to deal with an impossible situation. A completely impossible situation.

"You want to know a secret?" he told Owen. "There is no solution. I can't fix this. Because this was never meant to happen!"

The way that it had happened, before, in Sunnydale — what Buffy had told him. The insanity spreading through the population. The deaths. The diseases. The madness. That had been a dimensional rift, and Cardiff was primarily temporal, but the result of opening them was the same.

Chaos. Devastation.

The end of the world.

Jack forced the glumness out of his mind. No. No, this was going to be fine. Jack _knew_ it would be fine. He would make it fine.

He just had to get in touch with Buffy.

* * *

"Ethan," Alison was trying to explain to Buffy, as she tried to scramble over the fence. "We're looking for Ethan Rayne. That man, from earlier. Do you remember?"

Buffy pushed Alison over the fence, trying to be helpful. Alison thunked down to the other side. She bit back the pain, as Buffy flipped over the top, landing on her feet, looking back to Alison, still completely lost as to what the hell was going on.

Alison staggered back to her feet. Hearing Ethan's footsteps in the distance. She surged forwards, racing to catch up with him, and when she got to the next fence, had a brainwave idea.

"Buffy," she said. "Punch here!" She pointed to the fence.

Buffy, obediently, punched through the wood, giving Alison enough space to run through.

Ha! That would help them catch up.

Ethan glanced over his shoulder, caught sight of them out of the corner of his eye, and swore beneath his breath. He raced forwards, turning a corner, but Alison ran after him. Her breath misting in the morning air, her heart beating so fast it was practically falling out of her chest.

Then she turned the corner, and…

Stopped.

There was nothing. No sound. No Ethan. No indication as to where he might have gone.

"He must be hiding," Alison said. She began to search, frantically, using the light on her mobile as a torch. But… no. He just… wasn't there. At all. No trace of him.

Except… the faint smell of candy floss, in one particular empty space of road.

"Psionics," Alison recognized. Well, that was just brilliant. Now she'd never find him. Never find the monster. And with Seo out of commission, she'd never even know how to…

Alison froze.

Truth crashing across her, all at once.

Seo was in a healing coma. Buffy was completely unable to grasp the world around her. Ethan had run away. Everyone else in the world was dealing with the temporally unstable madness.

And that left… Alison.

Alison. By herself. A normal human being. Now somehow expected to find and trap a soulless monster whose shape she didn't know, which didn't have a conscience and had all the intelligence and experience of the world's most famous Slayer ever. Not kill it. Swap its mind with Buffy's. And hope that Seo somehow came out of this all right.

Alison turned back to the still entirely clueless Buffy.

The one person with the knowledge and skills to fix everything in the world. And her fate was in Alison's hands.

"No pressure, then," Alison muttered to herself, as she led Buffy back to the car.

* * *

"Buffy?" Dawn shouted into her cell phone, through the chaos. "Look, Buffy, I know you're busy, but the world's ending and I need to get in touch with Seo. So… just… call me back, k? Bye." She ended the call, and cursed beneath her breath.

"How many tries does that make, now?" said Willow. "Fifty?"

"Fifty three," said Dawn. She considered speed dialing Buffy, again, but decided to wait at least thirty seconds before the next attempt. She turned the cell phone over in her hands. "That… friend of Seo's. Buffy keeps mentioning her. Alison… something." She looked up at Willow. "Do you have her number?"

Willow shook her head.

"What I want to know," said Kennedy, "is why Willow used to have enough magic energy to do serious damage to a Hell Goddess, and now, can't even manage to take down one velociraptor?"

Willow looked down at her hands. "I don't know," she confessed. "It's like… my energy's been draining away, ever since last summer. I thought it was something to do with Seo and the dimensional separation thing, but…"

"If there's a rift or Hellmouth open, somewhere," said Kennedy, "you'd be getting all of that back, now. And you're not."

Dawn marched past Kennedy and Willow, cell phone still in hand. "I have to check in with Ria," she said, racing out the door. "Make sure she knows this rift-opening thing isn't part of the war. Otherwise, the Tech Demons going to start some massively stupid retaliation that will kill off—"

"Dawn Summers."

Dawn swung around, as she heard the voice. Just there, down the hall from her, was an older-looking man, with white hair, beady black eyes, and a silk cravat. Something about the way he stared at her made her… hesitate.

It was almost like… he recognized her.

"Who…?" Dawn asked.

But before she knew what was happening, the man was right in front of her, thrusting a knife deep into her gut. She struggled to breathe, struggled to get away, struggled to hold in the blood pouring out, but he held her fast.

"You have no idea," he whispered to her, as he stabbed again, and again, and again, "how long I've wanted to do this to you."

The screams and shouts of Willow and Kennedy, around her, as they rushed at the man with the knife. But he dropped a small, ticking bomb-looking device, and then grabbed Dawn by the wrists, and…

The world went white.

Then slammed into color, again, somewhere else. Somewhere near… the sea. Somewhere… no, wait, it looked kind of like… wait, was this Cardiff?!

Another jab of the knife, twisting inside of her, and she barely had enough time to scream.

Before she fell away.

And died.

* * *

"No!" Seo screamed.

The vision faded, around her, leaving only the darkness. The shadows. And Bilis, standing not far away.

Bilis. Who'd murdered… purposely and brutally murdered… her aunt. Dawn Summers.

"You are the Key," said Bilis, unaffected. "And so is she. But, unlike you, she can only release her energies fully by dying."

Seo glared at him. " _I_ could have released her energies for you," she gritted out. "You didn't have to kill her!"

Bilis just gave a sly smile. "But I _wanted_ to."


	9. Chapter 9

Alison raced back to the car, praying it was still drivable. Yes. Yes, it was! Side scrunched up, but drivable!

From Seo's pocket, Buffy's mobile rang. Alison rushed to the still-open passenger side door, and grabbed up the mobile, answering it. "Hello?"

"Buffy, where the hell are you?" Jack demanded. "I need you, right now. Owen's opened the rift, and the whole world's—"

"I'm not Buffy!" Alison cut in. "She's brain-damaged and—!"

A horrible, gut-wrenching scream from Buffy.

Alison turned, to discover Buffy knocking her out of the way, flying towards the still, lifeless-looking form of Seo. Seo's eyes closed. Her face deathly pale. Barely even breathing, anymore.

Buffy grabbed Seo up in her arms, another scream torn from her lips, as tears welled up in her eyes.

"Oh, God," Alison breathed, regaining her footing. "You… know who she is."

On the other end of the phone, a little surprised, Jack asked, "Alison?"

Alison couldn't even speak.

Just watched as Buffy clutched her daughter, tears rolling down her face, sobbing, desperately, as she hugged Seo to her. Rocking back and forth on the seat of the car, audible pain and suffering flooding through her every breath.

"You think she's dead," Alison realized.

"Buffy's dead?" said Jack, on the phone.

"No," said Alison, suddenly remembering him. "No, no one's dead. It's just… look there's this 'Bilis Manger' out there, right? He's utterly mad, and he wants—"

"Yeah, we've met," said Jack. "You, Seo, and Buffy in Cardiff?"

"California."

For a few seconds, Jack said nothing. Absorbing this information.

"California," he breathed, at last. "You're in California. And California… is the only place…" He stopped. Then, in a more urgent voice, "Alison. How did you get there?"

Alison hesitated. Was… what Bilis had said true? If Jack knew about Seo being… 'the Key'… would he actually kill her?

"I… we… flew," Alison lied. "By plane."

"No, you didn't," said Jack. "Look, I don't care if Seo stole the device from Torchwood. She's not going to get in trouble if you tell me. I just need to know what she used to get you there. Because however you got to California, you stopped the time cracks there. You fixed this! And I need to use the same trick to fix everywhere else."

Alison's breath caught in her throat. As she looked at her comatose friend. Her friend, completely drained of energy, fixing such a small part of the rift. At Buffy, sobbing over a daughter she thought she'd lost.

Use the same trick… everywhere else…

"Alison!" said Jack, a little more urgently.

"He was right," Alison whispered. She stepped back. "Bilis was right. You're going to kill her."

"What?!"

She took the phone away from her ear. Bilis had been right all along. If it had drained Seo this much just getting here… and Jack wanted to use her to seal every single crack across the entire world…

Jack would kill Seo. Use up every scrap of life she had in her to save the world.

And Alison wasn't letting that happen.

"Find another way," Alison told Jack, and ended the call.

Flipped off the mobile, tucked it into her pocket, as she closed the passenger door, and hopped into the car. Turned the key in the ignition.

Time to go back to Ethan's house.

Gather the information she needed to hunt down this monster, herself, fix Buffy, and find out how to make the world better, again. Before Seo woke up.

Because she wasn't letting Seo's death be the only way to fix this.

Life _couldn't_ be that corny.

* * *

The key to locating Ethan's monster had been remembering what Jack had said.

That the temporal cracks around California had sealed.

"No temporal anomalies in California," said Alison, as she rushed over to Ethan's computer. Desperately pulling up local news items and police reports and anything else she could find on the internet. Because… everywhere else in the world might be going mad, have police swamped with reports of monsters and temporal madness and other chaotic things, but _not_ California!

Which meant… any madness that Alison found…

Was Ethan's monster.

And… yes! There! Now Alison was finding things. Reports of a woman-shaped person, running around some small towns, just to the east of here, picking fights and causing random acts of chaos wherever she went.

Woman-shaped, but her features were entirely blank. Her face and skin completely gray. Her eyes peeking out from a face that looked like wet clay.

Heading… east.

"Vaguely towards Giles," Alison realized.

And she could cut it off. She knew she could cut it off! It was heading east, which meant it was headed… right… for…

Alison swore.

According to Google maps, it was headed straight for the mountains. Densely forested areas where it'd have a lot of chances to hide.

"But that's all right," Alison reassured herself. "It's Ethan's monster. It'll be looking for people. Looking to cause chaos."

All Alison had to do was figure out where it was heading, how long it'd take to get there by car, and how she could manage to cut it off. She compiled police reports with local news stories and various other data, computing rates of moving forward and projections and everything she needed, and came up with…

"That green area," Alison said, squinting at it on Google maps. "Yosemite National Park."

It'd take an hour or so to drive there. At which point Alison just had to catch the monster using nothing but herself and a brain-damaged Buffy, somehow manage to restrain both the monster and Buffy, together, then use that magic book that Seo had picked up from Bilis' flat to switch their brains back.

"Easy," Alison muttered, getting up and rushing back towards the car. "Bout time I got my Hogwarts on."

She jumped into the drivers' seat, started the ignition.

"Here's hoping Yosemite in any way resembles Diagon Alley," Alison said, as she backed out of the driveway.

* * *

Ugg in cave.

Now Ugg here. Ugg scratch head. Where here? How Ugg get here?

No make sense.

"Wow!" say small animal-looking thing by feet. "That's brilliant! A real caveman!"

Ugg look at small animal thing. No. Not animal thing. Boy. Boy look like Thak's boy. Ugg hate Thak. Thak took Ugg's woman. Have boy. Make Ugg mad.

"You boy," say Ugg. "You Thak's boy."

"I'm David," say boy. "David Korjensky. Who are you?"

"Ugg hate Thak's boy!" shouted Ugg.

And with the swing of his club, he bashed the boy's head in.

* * *

Giles put his hand up to his head. He had a pounding headache. He'd been at the Ministry since the first reported temporal incidents began, trying to understand what to do.

"We have confirmation that it's Torchwood at fault," said the boss. "Which means, as usual, we're the ones left mopping up Torchwood's mess."

Everyone at the Ministry groaned.

"We should make Saxon head of Torchwood!" shouted someone. "He'd teach them a thing or two!"

Everyone else cheered their support for this.

"What about the British Museum?" asked another voice. "I heard it had been ransacked and burned to the ground."

"Yes, but we think we got the Vikings that did it," the boss replied. "They won't be giving us trouble, again."

Giles felt the world spin around him, and next thing he knew, he was on the floor, struggling for air. Someone else was above him, trying to give him water.

"What… what is…?" Giles tried. But his throat was sore and scratchy, and he could barely breathe.

"We don't know," came a voice nearby. "An ambulance is on its way. Have you had any exposure to anyone misplaced in time who might have been a disease carrier?"

Possibly.

No, rather, probably.

Considering how he'd been racing about London, trying to round them all up.

"I… I'm infected with a bloody historic disease," Giles muttered. "Delightful."


	10. Chapter 10

Yosemite didn't resemble Diagon Alley.

No, as the first tendrils of dawn peaked out over the horizon, spreading through the sky to illuminate the valley below, it looked more like… something out of a dream. Fog drifting through the upper branches of the fir trees, the waterfall catching the bright orange glow of the sun across its droplets.

Alison felt a smile drift up her face.

Wow.

If there was one place to be, at the end of the world — one stunning, gorgeous place to stand, as civilization stood on the brink of destruction — this was it.

Then Buffy gave another anguished sob from the backseat, which broke the spell cast over Alison by the amazing beauty of this place. She glanced in the rear view mirror, to find Buffy still deeply sorrowful and completely heartbroken, cradling Seo's limp body in her arms.

"Buffy," Alison tried, again, for the fifty-thousandth time, while attempting to zip across the twisty mountain pass. "Seo isn't dead. She's asleep."

No answer from Buffy.

"Asleeeeeep," Alison said, hoping that, if she said it loud and slowly enough, maybe Buffy would grasp the meaning.

Buffy just began crying, again.

"Never mind," said Alison, as she just barely managed to make the last swerve before she hit a tree.

When she finally made it to the front of the park, Alison was pretty much at her wit's end. The ranger looked at her, strangely, seeing the sobbing Buffy and the lifeless-looking Seo in the backseat. Alison tried to look completely innocent, hoping she came across more as the hero-trying-to-save-the-world, and less as the axe-wielding-maniac-trying-to-ditch-a-dead-body-in -a-national-park.

"Do you need some medical help for your friend?" the ranger asked.

"No, we'll be fine," said Alison, leafing through her wallet, trying to get the required $20 the sign requested. But… right. Forgot. No American currency. Or even a passport on her. Oh, customs would have a field day with this one when Alison finally did manage to get back home.

Alison shot the ranger a sheepish grin. "Is twenty pounds all right?"

The ranger ignored her. His eyes still fixed on Seo and Buffy. "I'm… going to call an ambulance," the ranger said, picking up the phone. "That looks—"

That was when his radio crackled into life. Reports from a frantic person on the other end, who was screaming, shouting about some faceless monster by Camp 4, in the valley. Alison grabbed up the map from the ranger, shoved her foot down on the accelerator, and raced ahead.

Camp 4.

Got it.

Now Alison just had to make sure she got there before anyone else got hurt.

* * *

"No!" Gwen screamed, as she raced into the room, dropping to her knees and grabbing up the dead Rhys in her arms. The dead, stabbed Rhys, blood pouring out from his midsection.

Jack rushed in, after her. Stopped, when he saw Gwen's dead boyfriend, on the floor of the vaults.

Gwen tried to hold back a sob. She had fought with him — her beautiful Rhys. Fought with him such a short time ago. Confessed to him that she'd slept with Owen, then retconned Rhys, begging him to forgive her before he forgot her whole confession. But he hadn't forgiven her! Hadn't said anything, before he passed out. Gwen loved him, loved him more than anything! She'd betrayed him, and he hadn't forgiven her, and now he was… he was…

"No!" Gwen said, rocking Rhys in her arms. "Please, no. Please!" She looked up at Jack. "We… can bring him back!"

"There's nothing we can do," said Jack.

"Yes, there is!" Gwen screamed. She jumped up, and began hitting Jack as hard as she could in the chest. "There has to be! There has to!"

* * *

Xander was alone, when the Saber Tooth Tiger appeared.

He turned. Held up his hands, and gave the giant cat a placating grin.

"Buy you some meow mix?" he offered.

The tiger growled at him. Then pounced.

"Didn't think that would work!" Xander shouted, as he turned and ran. Raced through the streets of Cleveland, fast as he could. Ria and her group were just up ahead, trying to get some misplaced revolutionary war soldiers to stop shooting at the Tech Demons they were supposed to be defending.

"Ria!" Xander called. "Big cats! Get…!"

That was when the claws sliced through his chest.

And he fell against the pavement.

And died.

* * *

Alison floored the accelerator.

Camp 4 was just up ahead — she could see the signs for it, now. So close. Just a little bit more, and Seo still hadn't woken up, and Alison could do this! She could fix the world and fix Buffy and make sure Seo didn't die, even though Alison was just a normal human who…

Alison didn't notice the bend in the road in time.

And smashed into the fir tree, full blast. Airbags ballooning around them. Buffy giving a startled yelp from the backseat, as she was jostled and jumbled around.

"Buffy!" Alison called back. "Kick!"

Buffy did so.

And the airbag popped with a great big burst, the car door slamming off its hinges, thrown against the forest floor. Alison finally managed to get her own door open, tumbled past the airbag and rolled to her feet, meeting Buffy and Seo outside. Seo still nestled in Buffy's arms.

Now what?

A terrified human scream sounded from not that far away.

Buffy shot her head up. Snapping it around to face where the scream had come from. A suddenly determined, understanding expression spreading across her face.

She looked over at Alison. Handed Seo to her, with a look that dared her to harm one hair on her daughter's head.

Then turned on her heel, and sprinted for the noise.

Oh.

_Oh._

Buffy didn't have any thought processes left, but she was still acting on instinct, wasn't she? The mother instinct was telling her that Seo was her daughter. The instinct for self preservation would have let her get away from Ethan, after he was done destroying her mind.

And, if Buffy was anything like her daughter, the need to help others in trouble would be a deeply embedded instinct inside of her, as well.

Alison put Seo down on the ground, arranging her comfortably, wrapping her in a blanket and Alison's own coat, and prayed that she'd be all right on her own. Then turned, and raced after Buffy.

Because Alison had to make sure that Buffy just knocked the monster out, and didn't actually kill it, or she'd never get the brain-switching thing working in her favor.

Buffy beat her to the campsite. Alison could tell the moment Buffy arrived at the campsite by the screams and shouts and sounds of determined violence coming from nearby. Alison forced herself to race faster as, just up ahead, past those trees, she could see…

A campsite. Full of dead bodies. Blood dripping into the snow on the ground. Abandoned cooking items and fires and ripped-apart camper vans. And then… there was Buffy. Staring at a mostly-formless humanoid woman, with blood on her hands.

_Mostly_ formless. But… the woman… seemed to be morphing. Slowly but surely… turning into someone else. Her hair, once gray and indistinct, like the rest of her, had begun growing blond and whispy in the breeze. Her eyes were now blue. Her face now carrying more distinct features.

And, as Alison stared at her, she realized… this creature… was turning into Buffy.

"So, you're the template," said the creature, analyzing Buffy.

Buffy surged forward, launching herself at the creature, who managed to twist out of the way and deliver a perfectly skilled kick to Buffy's head.

"Pathetic," said the creature. "All instinct and no knowledge. No wonder you—"

Then doubled up, as Buffy flipped back to her feet, pushing forwards, anger and determination in her eyes. The creature frantically tried to process Buffy's moves, as she punched, kicked, clawed and attacked with the ferocity of a wild animal.

Then the creature reached out, twisted Buffy's arm, causing Buffy to cry out in pain. Stumble back, hurt arm in hand.

"Self preservation always trumps the will to help others," said the creature. Grabbing up a steak-knife from an abandoned campsite — abandoned in the middle of cooking breakfast, a pot of oatmeal still on the open fire — and stepped forward a few paces, hurling it at Buffy.

She only just dodged out of the way in time.

"Run away, animal!" shouted the creature. "It's time for me to take your place!"

Alison crept up to the abandoned campsite. Grabbed the pot up off the coals.

"I'm an improvement, you know," said the creature, just beside Buffy, yanking the knife out of the tree it had embedded inside of, and turning it back on Buffy. "The better Buffy! No conscience or guilt to weigh me down. All your skills, with no…!"

Alison, using every ounce of strength she had, swung the pot at the side of the creature's head.

The creature screamed out, in pain, clutching its burned face. Turning on Alison, venom in its eyes. "Oh, you little…!"

Then, before Alison even knew what was happening, the creature had hurled the knife deep into Alison's chest.

And she sank to the ground. As her vision faded to black.


	11. Chapter 11

"Wake up!" Seo told herself. Banging, with desperation, at the blackness of her own mind, littered with the visions of Alison dying, Xander dying, Willow dying, David dying, Mom fighting for her life. "I'm healed, now! I have to wake up!"

"Still so eager to save them?" Bilis asked. His cool, composed manner never wavering. "You weren't so eager to save me."

Seo felt this inner, dreamscape self of hers shaking with suppressed anger, fury, and hatred. Whether for the man in front of her, or for herself — for somehow causing all of this to happen in the first place — she honestly didn't know.

"Of course," said Bilis, "it is a _time_ anomaly. Caused by the rift. Which means… there's a very simple way that you can undo all of this. Bring everyone back."

Seo snapped her head up to him. Her eyes fixed on his. "What?"

"Everyone that's died," said Bilis. "Everyone you've lost. It's so easy, Seo. So very, very easy. All you have to do is let that rift reclaim what fell through. Reclaim what it lost."

Seo shook her head. "If you think fully opening the Cardiff Rift is going to undo the time anomaly, you're even more mad than—"

"No," Bilis cut in, reflecting. "Not… _what_ it lost. _Whom_ it lost."

Seo fell silent.

"A Key," Bilis continued, "who can see, understand, even control the essence of time itself. For whom rifts and portals and trans-dimensional energies are a thing of instinct. A toy for her amusement. The Cardiff Rift had that, once. Had you, once. And lost you. Because of me." He gave her a small smile. "Take my place, Seo. Enslave yourself to the rift, forever. And everyone will live, again."

Seo said nothing.

"You _know_ what I'm saying is true," said Bilis. "You can _feel_ it."

Yes. Yes, she could.

Just the same way she knew… this was the only way. The only way to save them all. Bring them all back. Everyone she lost. Everyone killed in this chaos. Everyone at Torchwood who suffered because of her.

She just had to return Bilis to his own time. His own place. Make it as if his imprisonment had never happened in the first place. As if he'd never gone mad.

And the only way to do that… was by trapping herself. Chaining herself to the Cardiff Rift. Forever. Living her life in an eternal hell.

Seo closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. "Do it."

"I have your consent?"

"Yes," said Seo. "Let me take your place. Please."

She could practically feel the smile on his lips. Feel the gloat of his triumph ringing through the air. Was this what he'd wanted, all along? His ultimate revenge?

A sudden jolt, deep down inside of her, as if something had ripped apart, somewhere far away. Seo looked up, around. Still nothing but blackness.

"What…?" Seo asked.

"The final piece of the puzzle," said Bilis. His body glowing, faintly, as he approached Seo. "Torchwood's just fully opened the Cardiff Rift. That means, with you, the last seal on my cage has finally been broken."

He went forward, grabbing Seo up by the arm. Looking deep into her eyes, as he gripped her hand in his, and she felt a powerful energy pass from him to her. Something crawling up into her, trying to seize her, trying to bore into her mind and imprison the very essence of all that was Seo.

And just as Seo thought… that was it… this was the end…

Bilis shouted in alarm, dropping Seo's hand. Stumbling back, a look of shock, anger, and betrayal on his face. "No," he said. Looked back at Seo, his face growing livid. "No!"

Seo looked down at her own hands. Then up at Bilis. She felt… the same.

"It should have worked!" Bilis shouted. "It had to have worked! It…!" He stared at Seo, advancing on her. "You. What have you done?!"

Seo backed away from him.

"It was you!" Bilis said. "It's always you! Being clever. Operating behind the scenes. Making sure all us temporally different people are sealed off, captured, or buried alive, so no one can hear us scream." His eyes grew dark. "So… what is it? What am I missing?"

"I don't know," said Seo.

"What's the key to the final lock sealing me away?" Bilis demanded. "Why can't I get free? What have you done to me?"

"I told you, I don't know!" Seo shouted back. "I haven't done it, yet!"

Bilis stopped. Examined her with cold, beady eyes.

"Running away from responsibility," he said. "Just like always. I suppose you think this isn't your fault at all. That this is all just me, going mad." He shook his head. "Selfish, selfish Seo."

"I—"

"I loved you," said Bilis. "Loved you so much I'd have done anything for you. And you repaid that love by torturing me. Imprisoning me. Trapping me here, for all eternity, with no hope of ever escaping." His eyes burned with rage. "You did it to me. And you'll do it to your precious Captain Jack."

Seo stared.

"Don't believe me?" Bilis laughed, bitterly. He leaned in, closer, his voice low. "I thought about getting my revenge on him. Thought about how much I wanted to tear him apart for his role in what happened. But in the end…" He shook his head. "There's nothing I could put him through that's crueler than what you'll do to him, yourself."

Seo's breath caught in her throat. "But I don't—"

"Excuses, excuses, excuses!" Bilis snapped. Threw his arms up. "When will you admit that _you're_ the selfish one?! That you only make people love you, make people loyal to you, so they can sacrifice themselves for you when you're in danger?! You make them trust you, make them love you, just so it hurts that much more when you twist the knife."

Seo's very soul shuddered at this. Overrun by a hundred years of guilt and pain and self-blame.

"I'm sorry," Seo said, almost pleaded. "I'm so sorry. But I don't—"

But Bilis was already gone.

And so, Seo realized, in horror, was the thing that had been moving in the blackness.

* * *

Seo woke up, with a gasp. A forest, surrounding her. She was lying on a patch of unsnowy ground, a blanket wrapped around her. A crashed car right beside.

She leapt to her feet.

She could feel it. Feel that gape of the Cardiff Rift, fully open, roaring its fury for all to hear. She knew what was at the bottom of that rift. She knew what Bilis' fallback plan had been.

She raced forward, darting through the trees, rushing instinctively for some place she knew but couldn't quite place, as if it were temporally significant, a rough point for a collection of what-ifs and never-weres and should-have-beens.

And… there!

Alison, on the ground, staring down at herself, dazed and confused. Touching the area right around her heart, just to make sure it was still intact and fine.

Buffy — Mom — not far away. Hand against her head. Staring at the monster that had once carried her brain, as it slowly faded out of reality.

The curious campers, cooking breakfast over open fires or stepping out of camper vans to see what was going on.

"But… that's not… how…?" Seo said.

It had all gotten put back. Just the way it'd been before. The damage undone. The timelines disentangled.

"Shouldn't I be dead?" Alison asked, getting up. Then she groaned. "Don't tell me this is a Twilight Zone moment, and I actually _am_ dead, but don't know it."

"No, that's just what if feels like to come back from the dead for no apparent reason," said Buffy, getting up, herself. "You get used to it after the first three or four times." She looked around herself. A small smile creeping up her face. "Hang on. Is this Yosemite?"

Alison nodded.

"Go figure!" said Buffy. "I totally love this place."

Seo stumbled forward. She could still feel it, deep down inside. That terrible pull of energies, tearing at her, ripping through her. An open rift, like a gaping wound in her chest. And… something else. Something different. Something… she had never felt before… didn't completely understand…

Almost as if… Seo could feel someone, showing up, half a world away… no, could feel… _herself_ …

But who was she in the future? What would she…?

Hands caught her. Mom's hands.

"I… have to get back," Seo said. Gritting her teeth, trying frantically to find some thread she could pull to warp reality and transport her to Cardiff. Trying to find some crack she could exploit, some tendril of the rift she could use to her advantage.

But all the cracks had been sealed.

"Seo," came Mom's voice, from just beside her.

Seo looked up. Buffy. Mom. Looking just the way she always did. Not brain-dead. Not confused. Not hurt. Just… looking… Momish.

And she was staring back at Seo as if… she could barely believe that Seo was alive. As if she could barely imagine the pain and loss that would have gnawed through her if Seo had gone through with it — given herself up for the rest of the world.

"But I have to!" Seo insisted. "It's my fault, Mom. I did it! The Cardiff rift's been open, the monster's gotten loose, and people are dying and… and… I have to save them! I have to! Even if that means sacrificing myself for—"

Buffy cut her off by snatching her up into a tight hug. Arms shaking, as she clung to Seo, almost desperately.

A sniffle escaping from her.

"Don't you dare," Mom breathed. A tear running down her cheek. "Don't you ever, ever dare."

* * *

And in Cardiff, as the great monster Abbadon loomed over the city, and Torchwood frantically tried to work out a way to stop him — another altercation was taking place. An altercation between Bilis Manger, and someone who'd crossed her own timeline to face him down.

An older, wiser — and far angrier — Seo. Who had just come forward in time, from when she'd last met this man, 200 years ago, with her friends.

Her friends stood by her.

But they all knew — this was Seo's fight. And they were letting her fight it.

"…what am I missing?" Bilis was seething at the elder Seo. "What?"

Seo held up a box in her hand. A wooden-looking box, once filled with a memory-altering entity, and now filled with nothing but sand.

"I took it with me," said Seo. "When I came here, from the past. That's why you couldn't find it." Then, tossing it to him, "Catch!"

Bilis caught it. Greedily grabbed at it, tearing it open, throwing both sand and box into the golden energies of the rift, where the whole thing burned away.

They all waited, with baited breath, for something to happen.

Nothing did.

"It didn't work!" shouted Bilis Manger. "What…?!"

"It's a stasis box converted into a stabilizer field," said a slightly older version of Alison, from where she stood behind her friend. "All you've done, by letting the rift consume it, is to set what she's done to you in stone." Her eyes shone. "You're trapped in the rift forever, now. Sorry!"

Bilis struggled to break free from his prison. But failed.

He stared at Seo, horror flooding across him.

"As if I'd require you to kill my friends and family in order to release yourself!" Seo scoffed. She shook her head, almost disappointed in him. "The lock on your prison is empathic, you dolt. It doesn't just require you to gather items and people and have them do certain things. It requires the correct _feelings_ behind those actions."

"What?" shouted Bilis.

"A drop of Dawn's blood — supposed to be given freely, as she forgave you," said Seo. "Alison's iPhone — a sign of trust. Torchwood's opening the rift — an expression of harmonious teamwork. Obtaining my consent — well, that goes without saying, doesn't it?"

"And Rhys?" demanded Bilis.

Seo's eyes flicked over to Abaddon, who'd noticed something in the distance. No. Some… _one_. Someone with more life energy than anyone else.

"Insurance," said Seo, bitterness edging her voice. "In case you worked out who actually saved me, all those years ago. And came after him." She glanced back at Bilis. "Which… looks like… you did."

"Naturally."

Seo shot him an icy glare.

"Oh, don't bother threatening me!" said Bilis. He laughed. "Your friend Alison's already said you tricked me into keeping myself locked up here, forever. There's nothing more you can do to me!"

"That's what she said," this older version of Seo replied. A twinkle in her eye. "Not what I actually did."

As she sealed his fate forever.


	12. Chapter 12

By the time Buffy, still in California with Seo and Alison, checked in with Torchwood, it was all over, anyways.

And Jack was dead.

"Seo was right," Buffy told Alison. "Torchwood opened the rift. A monster came out. And Jack… sacrificed himself to stop it."

Alison could see that Buffy was only holding herself together through sheer stubborn willpower. That there was a part of Buffy that was torn apart with grief over losing a close friend like Jack, and a part of Buffy that was still crying tears of utter relief that her little girl was alive.

"You… remember what it felt like," Alison said. "Thinking… Seo was dead."

Buffy looked up at Alison. "You remember dying."

Yes. Yes, she did.

Remembered dying. Remembered Bilis Manger. Remembered coming to California and having to save the day, and being scared to death because Seo was getting haunted by some revenge-seeking ghost that wanted to make her kill herself.

And she remembered… hearing… that Seo was 'the Key'.

"The Key," Alison repeated.

Buffy nodded, slowly. "So you figured it out."

Alison stared at her. "You… already knew?"

"My sister's the same way," said Buffy, her eyes falling on the ground. "She almost died for it, when she was fourteen. I had to save her life." She flicked her eyes back up to Alison. "Did you tell anyone?"

"No," said Alison.

A smile tugged at the corners of Buffy's face. "Thank you."

"Can… can Seo really…?" Alison hesitated. "She said… if she wanted to open the Cardiff rift, she could have done it any time she wanted. Just by thinking about it. Is that… true?"

"I honestly don't know," Buffy confessed. "Probably. She'd never be able to control it, though. Not by herself."

Alison nodded.

"I don't… keep many secrets from Torchwood," said Buffy. "But this one… should stay secret. My sister, Seo, they… can't help what they are. But it's _who_ they are that counts." Buffy took a long, slow breath. "Torchwood doesn't always remember that, when they get desperate."

Yes. Alison remembered. Remembered what Jack had said, back when he'd called, and Alison had been watching Buffy sob over a seemingly-lifeless Seo, and…

But now Jack was dead.

"Look, what happened… it can't really be Seo's fault," Alison insisted. "Can it?"

Buffy said nothing.

"It just… can't!" said Alison. "I can't believe it. I can't believe she'd just run away from someone without having any better reason than that he was an unstable point in space-time!"

"I can," Buffy said, in a voice barely above a whisper.

* * *

Dawn looked around herself. Confused. Bewildered.

Where was she?

Not in Cleveland, that was for sure. But how'd she gotten here? What had happened in the last twenty four hours? And why was she having such a hard time remembering?

She reached for her cell phone, but it was gone. Dropped, she guessed, when she was being… transported… here… somehow.

That made no sense.

"Excuse me!" Dawn called out to someone. "Excuse me. Do you know where I am?"

They ignored her.

Damn. Perception filter TARDIS key thing. Dawn had totally forgotten about that.

"You're in Roald Dahl Plass," said a voice to Dawn's left. "Cardiff."

Dawn spun around, and found herself facing a very handsome young man, about her own age, in a black pinstripe suit.

"Ianto Jones," he introduced, extending his hand. "Torchwood. You must be Dawn Summers."

Dawn didn't shake his hand. "How do you know my…?"

"Ah," Ianto reached into a pocket, then handed her a small, folded up note. "Someone… gave this to me."

Dawn opened it up. And read.

_Dear Ianto,_

_The confused person on your invisible lift is Dawn Summers. Please take care of her — she doesn't know where she is or how she got here. But she's just saved the world._

_And will want to get back to Cleveland soon as possible._

_Thanks,_

_Seo._

_PS. Please burn this letter when you're done._

Except that, in the post-script, the word 'burn' had been crossed out and… in Dawn's own handwriting… the word 'eat' had been written in, just above.

"Uh… it'll go good with ketchup?" Dawn volunteered, handing the letter back to Ianto.

Ianto folded the letter. And put it back into his pocket. "Let's see if we can't get you back to Cleveland."

* * *

Buffy had known that Seo wouldn't accept Jack's death.

Buffy had trouble accepting it, herself.

It was one of the reasons Buffy delayed taking them all back to England. Besides the hassle of needing to travel without passports or Seo showing up on machines or any apparent entry into the United States in the first place. Buffy… just kept feeling like maybe… if she never went back to England… she could pretend Jack had sprung back to life, again.

(And was this Buffy's fault? She'd slept with him, hadn't she? Thought he'd be safe, because he couldn't die. But what if… this was the legacy of the Powers that Be, killing off anyone she got intimate with? What if they'd finally managed to kill Jack for good?)

If Buffy could barely come to terms with Jack's demise, there was no way Seo ever would.

Jack had been the only person in Seo's life that she'd known — for a fact — would outlive her. The only speck of permanence in an ever-changing world. She could barely accept the idea that Jack might hate her forever.

She certainly wouldn't be able to accept that Jack had actually died for good.

"That doesn't make sense," Seo told Buffy, when she'd finally gotten up the courage to tell her daughter the truth.

"Abaddon sucked the life out of him," Buffy said. "He's dead, Seo. Really dead, this time. And he isn't coming back to life."

Seo thought this over. Processed it. Then dismissed it all as a lie.

"But what _really_ happened?" Seo asked.

Buffy, at some point, knew there was no point in trying to argue with Seo. She'd figure it out, some day. But until then… maybe it was better to live in denial about this.

Easier than living with the truth.

Buffy eventually worked out, with Ria, a way to arrange for the Slayer Institution's private jet to drop the three of them off in London.

Alison's parents gave her an earful when she arrived home, of course. All the way to California and back, without a passport? Yeah, Buffy had had a hell of a time smoothing that one over.

That was the easy part. Next… came the long, painful trip to Torchwood.

"Do you think… when we get there… Jack will forgive me?" Seo asked. "For… what I did? Do you think…?" Seo paused. Then, in a very low voice, "Do you think he'll ever forgive me?"

But he wouldn't. Would never be able to say anything to Seo, ever again. The immortal man, the one man Buffy could count on not to go permanently dying on her, in a fight… and he was gone. Gone forever. Never, ever coming back.

Buffy had to pull over to the side of the road. Bent her head down over the steering wheel.

And burst into tears.

* * *

In the Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff, a wind whipped up from nowhere, as a blue police box materialized on the Plass. Across the way, a man in a World War II military greatcoat sprinted across the Plass, rucksack on his back, as if running for his life.

"Doctor!" Jack shouted.

The TARDIS began to wheeze and groan, and Jack, in desperation, threw himself at the outside, clinging to the blue exterior as both he, and the TARDIS, faded back into the vortex.

For a few moments, the Plass was still. Quiet, save for the spectators who were all still mildly shocked at the mad man with the rucksack who'd disappeared.

Then they shrugged. And went on with their lives.

This was Cardiff.

They'd seen odder things.

Three minutes later, Buffy Summers arrived in Cardiff.

* * *

"Yeah, there, see?" said Owen. He pointed at Seo. "She said it, not me. Her bloody fault. All along. Opening the rift, the temporal shift back to 1941, Bilis Manger. All Seo's fault. Nothing to do with me and Diane."

Everyone gave Owen the same sharp glare. Buffy advanced on him, pure fiery rage inside her eyes. And Owen began to feel much like he had when he was facing down that weevil, in that cage.

"It wasn't your fault," Tosh told Seo. Trying to give the girl some comfort. "In fact, we could have used you, back when Jack and I were stuck in 1941."

"1941," Seo repeated, her voice expressionless.

"Yes, we fell through a crack in space-time," said Tosh. She smiled. "And I remembered you were the only one who understood those Rift Manipulator equations. But for some reason, neither Owen, Gwen, nor Ianto ever thought to call you."

Seo didn't answer.

Gwen and Ianto exchanged blank looks. Apparently, neither of them had known that Seo understood the rift equations. Then they both turned on Owen, who was looking a little guilty.

"All right," Owen admitted. "So… I might have… kept that from you. But, in all fairness, I only did it because I knew that if _she_ turned up," pointing at Buffy, "she'd have never let me open the rift."

Buffy just leveled the same livid stare at Owen.

"It wasn't just Owen," Gwen cut in. She sighed. "It was all of us, in the end. We… got visions. People we loved, lost. Telling us to open the rift."

"Yeah, yeah, I know all about that trick," said Buffy. She took in a sharp breath, trying to suppress her anger. Turned to the Torchwood team, looking almost exactly like the same Buffy that had led a group of Potential Slayers to battle against the First. "Just remember. What happened this time? _This_ was the _good_ scenario. You unleashed one single monster of unspeakable horror. Just one." She shook her head. "You guys have absolutely no idea how lucky you were."

The Torchwood team looked down at their feet, like chided school-kids.

"But… we have the equations!" Tosh insisted. "We know how to—"

"You know _nothing_!" said Buffy. "Rifts, Hellmouths, trans-universal portals — do you have any idea how powerful they are? They can shatter a reality to pieces. Swallow entire worlds whole. Cause temporal and dimensional collapses you can't even begin to dream of. _I_ should know. _I_ grew up on one."

They all went quiet.

"You screwed around with stuff you didn't understand," said Buffy. "Even when Jack told you not to. And, in the end, _he_ was the one who paid the price. For all of you." She leveled a glare at them. "I hope you're all proud of yourselves."

Seo turned and raced out of the Hub.

Gwen hesitated, worry spreading across her face. Then darted after her, fast as she could.

Buffy rounded on Owen. Finger pointing right in his face, as she backed him against the far wall of the hub. "And, as for you, bud," said Buffy. She gave him a level glare, her anger barely held in check. "I've said it to my daughter. And I'll say it to you. You, Owen Harper, are officially grounded for the next three hundred years."

* * *

Seo sat on the step on Roald Dahl Plass. Her head in her hands.

Gwen came over, and sat down beside her.

"Jack's gone," Seo whispered. "And he's not coming back."

And Gwen realized that… Buffy wouldn't have known that Jack had woken up. Would just assume that he was still dead, as he'd been, before.

"But he did come back," Gwen told Seo. "I kissed him and he got better. He was just here, walking and talking, only moments before you arrived. He… got… taken. Somewhere."

Seo absorbed this. Then shook her head.

"He wasn't taken," she said. "He ran. Ran far, far away. Through time." She huddled in on herself. "Just to get away from me."

Gwen wasn't sure how to make sense of what Seo was telling her. Ran away? Through time? What…? Why…?

How did she even know?!

"It's my fault," said Seo, looking off into the distance. "All my fault. Everything. I tried so hard to do it right, and in the end, I mucked it up, again. Like I always do." She shrugged. "And now… there's no one left to forgive me."

Gwen put her arms around Seo. Remembering her own fight with Rhys, when she'd confessed that she'd been sleeping around, begged him to just please tell her that he forgave her. And never managing to get him to do so.

She'd had his blood on her hands. Felt the pain of his death.

And he'd still never forgiven her.

Together, they sat there. Gwen and Seo. Looking off into the distance.

Both wishing for a forgiveness they knew they'd never get.


End file.
